Maya writing: Did you mean...?

Wooden writing-tablet, 1st-2nd century CE, from Londinium (Roman London). British Museum, London

A limestone relief slab depicting Seshat, the Egyptian goddess of writing. ca. 1919-1875 BCE. (Brooklyn Museum, USA).

This clay tablet is one of 12 tablets which were found near the temple of Tell Deir Alla in 1964. The inscriptions on the surface of the tablets are still unknown and this mysterious writing cannot be deciphered. Before 1200 BCE. From Al-Balqa...

Mark Van Stone explains how Maya hieroglyphs are constructed, by writing a modern name in phonetic glyphs. Dr. Van Stone is an expert decipherer and calligrapher; author of "2012 - Science and Prophecy of the Ancient Maya" and co-author of...

A painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris showing Thomas Jefferson (right), Benjamin Franklin (left), and John Adams drafting the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776. (Virginia Historical Society, Library of Congress)

A belief in an afterlife was central to every major civilization of the ancient world and this encouraged the recognition of the reality of ghosts as the spirits of the departed who, for one reason or another, either returned from the realm...

Juan de Grijalva (aka Grijalba, 1489-1527) was a Spanish conquistador who explored the eastern coast of Mexico in 1518. His notable achievements included a demonstration that the Yucatán Peninsula was just that and not, as previously thought...

The Maya glyph for Tikal. From a stela in the Archaeological Museum of Tikal.

My animation takes you through the birth and evolution of writing. Watch the story of the world's scripts unfold, from the early cave days to modern writing systems. But only if you choose to take Thoth's Pill... This animated documentary...

3-4th century CE, Guatemala, Mesoamerica. Metropolitan Museum of Art A favored vessel type of the Maya lowlands was one made in the shape of a tropical bird, perhaps a cormorant, in the act of catching a fish in its beak. The bird's forehead...