Mayan Writing :: essays research papers

Mayan report is angiotensin converting enzymeness of the almost beautiful but highly complex and difficult scripts in the world. It is a system that uses pictographs and phonetic or syllabic elements. The Maya used this sophisticated expression to carve symbols into stone. The most common place for writing was the perishable books they make from bark paper, coated with lime to make a fresh snow-white surface. These books were screen-folded and bound with wood and deer hide. They were referred to as codices, however only quartette remain today because of their perishable nature and Spanish book burning. The Maya writing system was one of the greatest achievements of their civilization.     Maya writing also appears on an stray of materials and in many places such as carved stone, door lintels, architectural stuccos, painted murals and carved on pottery. The Maya believed events were repeated over cycles of time, they kept little histories anchored in time by their calendars to predict events. By keeping records of wet and dry seasons, the Maya could determine the best times to plant and harvest crops. They had positive these accurate calendars that could be used forprophecy. They also were able to predict fickle cycles, phases of the moon and Venus.     The Maya, like all Mesoamerican people, used a vigesimal numbering system. The first nineteen numerals were similar to our English terms, with unique numerals from one through ten, and the numerals eleven through nineteen produced by combining one through nine with ten.     The symbols used by the Maya to write numbers-bars and dots- were used throughout Mesoamerica. The dot has the value of one, and the bar has the value of five. The Maya are also believed to read the first know concept of zero. This is represented by the elliptical shell.     Symbols cognize as glyphs were used to record non-numerical information. The Maya used logographs (shorthand symbols) for many more row than we do. Another class of glyphs stood for sounds that make up words. Mayan words are largely regular in sound structure. Most of the syllables consist of two or three sounds. There are a little over 800 known Maya glyphs. The glyphs usually contain several elements that are combined to give item-by-item glyphs an oval appearance. The largest glyphic element is the main sign. Maya glyphs appear to me as very complicated. Although few are recognizable as pictures of natural objects, others are very unidentifiable and unclear.