Maya Hieroglyphs and the Glyph System

The Maya script that filled the stelae, lintels, ceramic vessels, painted walls, and bark-paper books of the Classic period is a logosyllabic writing system. It works by combining two kinds of sign: roughly 300 syllabograms that encode the consonant-vowel (CV) and consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) syllables of the spoken language, and roughly 500 logograms that represent whole words or morphemes. Both kinds of sign are arranged in square or rectangular blocks, typically paired left-and-right or top-and-bottom, and read in fixed zigzag order from upper left to lower right. The convention produces the dense, modular look that is the most visible hallmark of the script and that gives the glyph blocks their characteristic “doubleness” — a feature shared with several other Mesoamerican writing systems but carried further by the Maya than by any of them.

This pages describes how the system works. The historical, linguistic, and decipherment context is treated on the page on Maya writing, language, and books and on the pages on Maya languages from Classic to modern and how scholars read Maya hieroglyphs today.

The basic unit: the glyph block

A Maya text is laid out on the page or monument as a series of glyph blocks, each of which is typically square. A block contains one or more individual signs, and most blocks contain two. The signs are read in a fixed order, conventionally called the “Maya reading order” by Sylvanus Morley and codified by Eric Thompson in the 1950s: within a block, the upper or left-hand sign is read first; within a pair of blocks, the upper or left-hand block is read first. The order of glyph blocks is generally left-to-right, top-to-bottom, but the visual layout of any given text is constrained by the available space, and the reading order is determined by epigraphers case by case. A few texts — the famous Tablet of the 96 Glyphs at Palenque is the best-known example — are arranged in elaborate grids that take years of work to read.

A single glyph block can encode a single word, a phrase, or even a full sentence. A logogram by itself can read a whole word — the sign for the day Ajaw, for example, is just a face in a cartouche — but most blocks combine one or two logograms with one or more syllabic “phonetic complements” that disambiguate which of several possible readings is intended. The combination produces a tightly integrated system in which the syllable signs are as important as the logograms. The relationship between the two is the heart of the script and the topic of the next several sections.

Syllabograms: CV and CVC

The syllabary encodes the consonant-vowel skeleton of the language. The principal signs are CV in structure: a consonant followed by a vowel. There are roughly 130 of these in the Thompson catalogue, although the actual number of phonologically distinct syllables is much smaller — the script, like any orthography, makes use of homophony. The series of signs for ba, be, bi, bo, bu, ma, me, mi, mo, mu and so on through the consonants of the language gives the system its basic shape.

CVC signs are rarer, but they exist. The sign for hal, for example, is a jaw; the sign for ch’en, “well” or “cave,” is a more complex conflation. CVC signs are used chiefly in words of the form consonant-vowel-consonant where the CVC is monosyllabic, and they are not a fully systematic part of the syllabary.

A practical example is helpful. The word cholan “to skewer” or “to shell” is written with a logogram that looks like a perforated fish — the logogram for the cholan sense — followed by the CV signs cha, lo, and na. The four signs together are read /cholan/. The reading is confirmed by the syllabic signs alone, which would be ambiguous, but with the logogram the meaning is clear. The same technique is used for the word b’olon “nine,” which is written with the B’olon sign (a head) plus the syllables bo, lo, na; the b’a syllable can be added to confirm the B’olon logogram.

A useful modern reference list of syllabic values is the so-called Thompson–Coe–Kelley syllabary, sometimes called the TCK syllabary. The history of this list is told in detail on the page on who first deciphered Maya writing. The list is the standard starting point for any new epigrapher.

Logograms and phonetic complements

A logogram is a sign that stands for a whole word. The Classic Maya script has roughly 500 of these, and they are the workhorses of the inscriptions. Common logograms include:

The day Ajaw (the face in a cartouche)
The month Wayeb’ (a stylized bundle)
The number B’olon “nine” (the perforated fish)
The verb tzah “to conjure” (a tied bundle)
The verb k’awiil (a stylized torch)

Logograms are typically followed or preceded by one or more syllabic signs that confirm or specify the reading. These phonetic complements are often partial: a b’a sign can follow a B’olon logogram to confirm the b’a sound at the start of the word, even though the b’a sound is already implied by the logogram itself. The convention produces a slight redundancy that is useful for the modern epigrapher, because it provides more phonological information than the logogram alone.

The redundancy has a darker side. A small number of words are written entirely with syllabic signs, with no logogram at all. The result is a “purely syllabic” spelling that the modern reader can work out by context, but that would have been impenetrable to a pre-Columbian reader unfamiliar with the word. The convention is treated at length in the page on how scholars read Maya hieroglyphs today.

Conflation and visual puns

The Maya script is famous for its use of conflation, in which the signs of a glyph block are visually merged to create a single, more compact form. The most spectacular case is the Isim K’uh, the “loss of the god’s essence,” in which the syllabic signs of a divine name are spread across the various elements of a glyph block to create a visual pun. The convention is a kind of esoteric writing, and the meanings of Isim K’uh forms are not always obvious.

The visual puns can also be straightforward. A Way sign (a face in a cartouche) can be combined with a hab’ sign (a sphere) to give Way-Hab’, a single compound glyph for the month Wayeb’. The b’a sign (a footprint) can be combined with the b’olon sign to give a single glyph for the number B’olon. The result is a portmanteau sign, in which the meaning of a complex word is encoded in a single block. The convention is rare in formal inscriptions and common in the post-Classic codices.

The Thompson–Coe–Kelley syllabary

The standard reference for Maya syllabic values is the Thompson–Coe–Kelley syllabary, also called the TCK syllabary. The list was developed in stages over the second half of the twentieth century, building on Eric Thompson’s 1950 Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction, the phonetic values proposed by David Kelley in his 1962 paper and subsequent work, and the systematic revisions of Michael Coe in the 1970s and 1980s. The list is the basis of all modern epigraphic work, and it is the standard reference for the values of the CV and CVC signs.

The TCK syllabary is sometimes contrasted with the Ivic–Kaufman values proposed by the linguists Lucille Ivic and Terrence Kaufman, who argued in 1971 for a more systematic set of phonetic values based on Proto-Ch’olan reconstructions. The two systems agree on most signs but differ on a small number of important cases, including the value of the sign usually transcribed as yi in TCK and as i in Ivic–Kaufman. The differences are important for specialists but rarely affect the reading of the texts in any practical way.

Personification: the Isim K’uh and its siblings

A common convention of the Classic Maya script is the personification of syllabic signs, in which a CV sign is dressed up as a deity or mythological animal. The most famous example is the K’INICH sign, a sun-face that doubles as the syllable ki (or, in some readings, the word k’in “sun” or “day”). Other examples include the K’awiil sign, a stylized torch, and the Chahuk sign, a stylized bird. The personification is not just a visual flourish: it is a way of indicating that a particular syllable is being used in a divine sense. The convention is closely related to the Isim K’uh, the “loss of the god’s essence,” in which the syllabic signs of a divine name are spread across the various elements of a glyph block to create a visual pun.

The Isim K’uh is treated at length in the page on how scholars read Maya hieroglyphs today. The personification is also a key feature of the cosmic context of the script, which is treated on the page on Maya religion, mythology, and cosmology.

Numbers, dates, and the calendar

A special class of signs is the bar-and-dot numerals, in which a dot is the number 1 and a horizontal bar is the number 5. The system is vigesimal (base 20) for the larger numbers, with a special position for the number 360 (used in astronomical calculations) and another for the number 0. The vigesimal system is reviewed on the page on Maya science, mathematics, and astronomy and on the page on the Maya number system and the concept of zero.

A complete date is written with the Long Count, the Tzolkin, the Haab’, and the Calendar Round, in a standard format that takes up several glyph blocks. The format is treated on the pages on the Tzolkin sacred calendar, the Haab’ solar calendar, and the Long Count and Calendar Round.

The cosmological load of the script

To the Classic Maya, writing was not just a way of recording speech but a sacred technology in which the spoken word participated in the cosmic order. A glyph block was, etymologically, a “mat” or “seat” of signs, and the act of writing was a kind of speech, a participation in the divine logos. The conventions of the script are therefore not arbitrary: they participate in the cosmology in which the gods themselves had given writing to humanity. The first scribe-god, Itzamna, was held to have invented the script, and the Hero Twins of the Popol Vuh and the Maya creation myth were the first to use it.

The conventions of the script are also reflected in the painted programs of the royal courts. The scribe is often shown with the tools of his trade, including the brushes, paints, and bark paper that are described in detail on the page on scribes, literacy, and education in Maya society. The painted program of Bonampak, Yaxchilán, and the Usumacinta is the most spectacular case.

Conventions of inscription

Maya inscriptions are formulaic. The standard opening of a royal inscription is the Initial Series, in which the Long Count position of the date is given, together with the Tzolkin day, the Haab’ day, the Calendar Round, and the lunar age and other astronomical data. The opening is followed by a Distance Number, which gives the number of days between the Initial Series and the event to be recorded, and then by the event itself, which is usually a king’s accession, his capture of a prisoner, his marriage, his death, or his ritual.

The conventions are remarkably consistent across the corpus. The stelae of Tikal, the heart of the Classic Maya world, the inscriptions of Palenque and the court of Pakal, the monuments of Copán and the dynasty of the 18-Rabbit, and the carved panels of Calakmul, Caracol, and the Snake kingdom all follow the same general pattern, with site-specific variations in the iconography and in the use of the Isim K’uh. The convention is treated at length in the page on how scholars read Maya hieroglyphs today.

Reading a glyph block in practice

A worked example is helpful. The opening glyph of the Tablet of the Cross at Palenque, which is dated to 9.12.18.5.16 4 Kaban 5 Kayab’, is the day Kaban 4, with the Tzolkin coefficient 4 and the Haab’ day Kayab’ 5. The opening of the inscription is read in six glyph blocks:

The Initial Series Introductory Glyph, a face in a cartouche with the value pi and the meaning “at” or “on.”
The Long Count position 9.12.18.5.16, written with a bar-and-dot and head-variant numerals, with the Kaban day written as a single glyph block.
The Calendar Round glyph, which gives the Tzolkin and Haab’ days together.
The lunar glyph, which gives the age of the moon and the lunar month.
The Glyph G of the Supplementary Series, which gives the position of the 780-day cycle.
The Glyph F of the Supplementary Series, which gives the position of the 819-day cycle.

The inscription continues with the Distance Number to the dedication of the Cross group, and then with the dedication itself, in which the god K’awiil is shown seated on the cross, with the king’s accession in the year 9.13.0.0.0 recorded as a Period Ending glyph. The reading is typical of Classic Maya inscriptions, and it illustrates how the script works in practice.

What we do not know

There is still much that we do not know about the Maya glyph system. The full inventory of signs is not yet established, and the values of a small number of important signs remain uncertain. The conventions of inscription are not yet fully understood, and the use of the Isim K’uh in particular is a topic of ongoing research. The relationship between the script and the spoken languages of the period is still being worked out, and the glottochronology of the Cholan-Tzeltalan branch is not yet fully resolved. The conventions of personification, conflation, and visual pun are being studied in detail by a new generation of epigraphers, and there is much to be learned.

The current state of the field is reviewed in the page on how scholars read Maya hieroglyphs today. The decipherment history is told on the page on who first deciphered Maya writing. The languages that the script encoded are treated on the page on Maya languages from Classic to modern.

Sources

Coe, M. D. & Van Stone, M. (2005). Reading the Maya Glyphs (2nd ed.). Thames & Hudson. — link
Houston, S. D. (2004). The First Writing: Script Invention as History and Process. Cambridge University Press. — link
Martin, S. & Grube, N. (2008). Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens (2nd ed.). Thames & Hudson. — link
Boot, E. (2009). The Updated Preliminary Classic Maya–English / English–Classic Maya Vocabulary of Hieroglyphic Readings. Wayeb. — link
Knorozov, Y. V. (1952). Ancient writing of Central America. Sovetskaya Etnografiya, 3. — [link](https://www.worldcat.org/title/sovet skaia-etnografiia/oclc/60638864)
Proskouriakoff, T. (1971). Commoners in Classic Maya sculpture. In Memoirs of the Peabody Museum vol. 6. Peabody Museum, Harvard. — link