Once considered an unsolvable enigma, recent advances in the decipherment of the Maya writing system has not only shed light on the mechanics of the script, but also on the socio-political, artistic, and historical aspects of Maya civilization.
As a whole, the Maya people created the longest lasting civilization of the New World. It became distinguishable from other early farming cultures of Mesoamerica in the middle of the first millenium BCE, when the first great Maya cities were constructed. Their culture endured through changes, wars, and disasters until it was suppressed by the Spanish conquest in the 16th and 17th centuries. The last indepedent Maya kingdom of Tayasal, fell as late as 1697. However, the Maya survived and there is estimated to be at least one million Mayas living in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras today.
General Overview
The Maya hieroglypic writing is arguably one of the most visually striking writing systems of the world. It is also very complex, with hundreds of unique signs or glyphs in the form of humans, animals, supernaturals, objects, and abstract designs. These signs are either logograms (to express meaning) or syllabograms (to denote sound values), and are used to write words, phrases, and sentences. In fact, the Maya can write anything that they can say.
While we're on the subject of what the Maya could "say", let's talk about Maya languages. The "Maya" in general were actually not a single people but many nations with different, but related, cultures, religions, and languages. Of the many Maya languages, only two (possibly three) were written down with the hieroglyphic system. It is thought that speakers of the Ch'olan language, and possibly also those of the Tzeltalan language, were the inventors of the Maya writing system. Another group, the speakers of Yucatec, adopted the script to write their own language. However, in some places, both languages were represented on hieroglyphic inscriptions, which not only stumped archaeologists for many years but also offered tantalizing clues into how Maya languages have interacted.