New Catalog of Maya Hieroglyphs : Codical Texts

The New Catalog uses an original coding system developed for the Maya Hieroglyphic Database Project. The new three-digit codes group the graphemes according to their visual, rather than functional, characteristics to allow readers to see distinctions between similar signs. Each entry contains the grapheme’s New Catalog code, an image, the corresponding Thompson number, proposed syllabic and logographic values, calendrical significance, and bibliographical citations. Appendices and an index of signs from both volumes contain images of all graphemes and variants ordered by code, allowing readers to search for graphemes by visual form or by their proposed logographic and phonetic values.

Together the two volumes of the New Catalog represent the most significant updating of the sign lists for the Maya script proposed in half a century. They provide a cutting-edge reference tool critical to the research of Mesoamericanists in the fields of archaeology, art history, ethnohistory, and linguistics, and a valuable resource to scholars specializing in comparative studies of writing systems and related disciplines.

Martha J. Macri (Cherokee Nation) is Professor Emerita of Native American Studies and Research Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Davis. She is a co-principal investigator for the Maya Hieroglyphic Database project funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Gabrielle Vail holds a research position in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and collaborates with the Script Encoding Initiative (University of California, Berkeley). She is the author of several books, including The New Catalog of Maya Hieroglyphs, Volume 2 (with Martha J. Macri).