page_title: Maya civilization
section_title: Logosyllabic script
hierarchical_section_title: Maya civilization / Writing and literacy / Logosyllabic script
caption_attribution_description: English: Maya script reading order, assuming the inscription only consisted of the glyphs pictured, and did not extend beyond the photo.
context_page_description: The Maya civilization was a Mesoamerican civilization developed by the Maya peoples, and noted for its logosyllabic script—the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in pre-Columbian Americas—as well as for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system. The Maya civilization developed in an area that encompasses southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. This region consists of the northern lowlands encompassing the Yucatán Peninsula, and the highlands of the Sierra Madre, running from the Mexican state of Chiapas, across southern Guatemala and onwards into El Salvador, and the southern lowlands of the Pacific littoral plain. The overarching term "Maya" is a modern collective term that refers to the peoples of the region, however, the term was not used by the indigenous populations themselves since there never was a common sense of identity or political unity among the distinct populations. Today, the Maya peoples number well over 6 million people, speaking over twenty-eight surviving Mayan languages and residing in nearly the same area as their ancestors.
context_section_description: The basic unit of Maya logosyllabic text is the glyph block, which transcribes a word or phrase. The block is composed of one or more individual glyphs attached to each other to form the glyph block, with individual glyph blocks generally being separated by a space. Glyph blocks are usually arranged in a grid pattern. For ease of reference, epigraphers refer to glyph blocks from left to right alphabetically, and top to bottom numerically. Thus, any glyph block in a piece of text can be identified. C4 would be third block counting from the left, and the fourth block counting downwards. If a monument or artefact has more than one inscription, column labels are not repeated, rather they continue in the alphabetic series; if there are more than 26 columns, the labelling continues as A', B', etc. Numeric row labels restart from 1 for each discrete unit of text.
  Although Mayan text may be laid out in varying manners, generally it is arranged into double columns of glyph blocks. The reading order of text starts at the top left (block A1), continues to the second block in the double-column (B1), then drops down a row and starts again from the left half of the double column (A2), and thus continues in zig-zag fashion. Once the bottom is reached, the inscription continues from the top left of the next double column. Where an inscription ends in a single (unpaired) column, this final column is usually read straight downwards.
  Individual glyph blocks may be composed of a number of elements. These consist of the main sign, and any affixes. Main signs represent the major element of the block, and may be a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, or phonetic sign. Some main signs are abstract, some are pictures of the object they represent, and others are "head variants", personifications of the word they represent. Affixes are smaller rectangular elements, usually attached to a main sign, although a block may be composed entirely of affixes. Affixes may represent a wide variety of speech elements, including nouns, verbs, verbal suffixes, prepositions, pronouns, and more. Small sections of a main sign could be used to represent the whole main sign, and Maya scribes were highly inventive in their usage and adaptation of glyph elements.
caption: Reading order of Maya hieroglyphic text
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