Mesoamerican Writing Systems

       Mesoamerica, along with Mesopotamia and China, are among the few known places in the world where writing has developed independently. Mesoamerican scripts deciphered to date are a combination of logographic and syllabic values. They are often called hieroglyphs due to the iconic shapes of many of the glyphs, a pattern superficially similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs. Five or six scripts have been documented in Mesoamerica, but the limits of archaeological dating methods make it difficult to establish which was earliest and hence the forebear from which the others developed. The best documented and deciphered Mesoamerican writing system, and the most widely known, is the classic Maya script. An extensive Mesoamerican literature has been conserved partly in indigenous scripts and partly in the postconquest transcriptions in the Latin script. Read more . . .