Maya Glyphs

Hello there. My name is Maya Glyphs. You might look at me and see beautiful pictures of jaguars, people, and cool shapes, but I am so much more. I am a very special kind of writing. A long, long time ago, way back in the 3rd century BCE, the amazing Maya people lived in big cities in the jungle. They needed a way to remember all their important stories, like the history of their kings and queens, and special dates for ceremonies. They also watched the stars and wanted to write down what they learned. So, talented writers called scribes carefully created me. They drew me and carved me to keep their memories safe forever. I was born because people had so many wonderful things to say, and they wanted to make sure no one ever forgot them. I became their voice, written down to last for thousands of years.

My language is a bit like a secret code. Some of my pictures, which you call glyphs, stand for a whole word. For example, one picture might mean “jaguar,” and another might mean “king.” But other glyphs are just for sounds, like “pa” or “ma.” The scribes could put these sound-glyphs together to spell out any word they wanted, just like you use letters to spell words. It was a very clever system. During the Maya Classic Period, from the year 250 to 900 CE, I was very busy. Scribes carved me onto tall stone monuments called stelae, which they put in the middle of their cities for everyone to see. They also painted me carefully with brushes onto the pages of special books made from tree bark. These books are called codices. In their pages and on the stones, I told stories of great rulers, important battles, and what the Maya learned from watching the sun, moon, and stars. I held all their knowledge.

After the great Maya cities were left behind, a long, quiet time began for me. For hundreds of years, people could see me on the old stones, but they had forgotten how to read me. I became a mystery. My stories were trapped, and no one could hear them. It was like I was fast asleep. But then, in the 20th century, some very smart people, like detectives for history, started to study me very closely. A woman named Tatiana Proskouriakoff realized I told the history of real kings and queens. And a man named Yuri Knorozov figured out that my little pictures stood for sounds. Together, they and other smart people found the key to my secret language. They woke me up. Now, because of them, I can share all the amazing stories and secrets of the Maya civilization with you and the whole world. Isn't that wonderful?