Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: Introduction

The Maya script, also commonly known as Maya hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently the only deciphered Mesoamerican writing system. The earliest inscriptions which are identifiably Maya date to the 3rd century [BC], and writing was in continuous use until shortly after the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century [AD] (and even later in isolated areas such as Tayasal). Maya writing used logograms complemented by a set of syllabic glyphs, somewhat similar in function to modern Japanese writing. Maya writing was called "hieroglyphics" or "hieroglyphs" by early European explorers of the 18th and 19th centuries who did not understand it but found its general appearance reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphs, to which however the Maya writing system is not at all related. (Quote from wikipedia.org)

About the Author

Sir John Eric Sidney Thompson (1898 - 1975)
Sir John Eric Sidney Thompson (31 December 1898 - 9 September 1975) was an English archeologist and Mayanist epigrapher, regarded as the pre-eminent mid-20th century scholar of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. He was generally known as J. Eric S. Thompson in print and Eric Thompson to his colleagues.

Thompson was born in London and studied anthropology at the University of Cambridge.

In 1925 he began working under Dr. Sylvanus Morley of the Carnegie Institution on the archeological project at Chichen Itza. He took his new bride honeymooning through the jungle by mule to make one of the first explorations of the Maya site of Coba.

Thompson was, as he himself noted, of the last generation of "generalist" archeologists in the field, engaging in activities from finding and mapping new sites, excavation,