Ancient Mayan Script Of The Maya - 1282 Words

Ancient Mayan Script The Maya hieroglyphic writing is perhaps one of the most complex writing systems in the world. This writing system contains over hundreds of rare signs or glyphs in the form of humans, animals, and objects. Many of these signs contained either logograms or syllabograms to write words, sentences, and phrases. Logograms were to used express the meaning and syllabograms to denote sound values. The Mayan’s were able to write anything that they can say. They were able to turn whatever they spoke into a writing form because of their one of a kind writing system. The Maya were actually not a group of single people but many nations with several but linked cultures, religions, and languages. Of the many Maya languages, only two†¦show more content†¦He found a specific category of hieroglyph that he called â€Å"Emblem† Glyphs he noticed that this glyph had a standard position and form in Maya texts: they occurred towards the end of passages (Culbert 19). Another import ant object found was the Maya Glyph Block (AMNH), which contained Mayan Glyphs on a block. We found that the order to read Maya glyphs is not as easy as it would seem. Glyph blocks were arranged in a grid and they are read in paired columns. The first block is on the top left and the second is to the right of the first. (AS Web) Next thing that major in the Maya writing system was the numbers. Numbers and Calendar were the first part of the Mayan writing system to be deciphered by scholars during the 19th century. Comparable to our writing system and the Babylonians, the Maya used the idea of place value. Except we have a place value that increases from right to left in multiples of 10, the Maya system has a place value that increases in multiples of 20. Instead of the place value increasing horizontally from right to left, the Maya increased vertically moving up the page. For example, three is represented and three dots and five are represented as a bar. The Maya scribes loved decoration and complexity for its own sake as a result each number from 1 to 20