One of the major achievements of Maya culture was its system of hieroglyphic writing which was "the most highly developed script in pre-Columbian America." The Classic Period of Maya civilization extended roughly from A.D. 250 to A.D. 900. The writing system flourished in that era as one facet of a new, complex hierarchical order that was apparent from the civilization's remains but whose history was relatively inaccessible because the script could not be read. This writing was found on a variety of media. It was carved on freestanding stone monuments, on masonry architecture, on portable objects of bone or shell, and it was painted on pottery and in screenfold books, or codices, of bark paper. The content of the hieroglyphic codices was "primarily astronomical and divinatory" and for some time scholars believed that all Maya writing dealt only with the position of the stars and the art of prophesying from them. Gradually attention shifted to other media and it was slowly discovered that the inscriptions held "the names and deeds of kings and nobles, and accounts of how they and their people strove for prosperity and a place in history." Deciphering the Maya's script and discovering their history has been "one of the great stories of archaeology."
The Maya language group originated over 4,000 years ago in highland Guatemala and subsequently divided into thirty-one separate tongues most of which can no longer be understood by each other. The important languages for deciphering Maya hieroglyphics are the Yucatecan and Cholan languages that occurred in the lowland area that takes in parts of present-day Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and all of Belize. It was in this region that Mayan literacy flourished and "where the script achieved its most elaborate expression."
The specific origins of Maya script have not been determined but the generalized cultural unity of Mesoamerica makes it likely that there was con...