The Classic Maya and Their Script

In the forests of Guatemala, Yucatan and Chiapas dozens of independent cities are at work — Tikal, Copan, Palenque — rivals and allies by turns. The Maya develop the only script in pre-Columbian America that records speech in full: on stelae and lintels are written the dates of reigns, wars and rites. Their calendar counts from a conventional starting point and requires a sign for zero and the skill to predict the movements of Venus and the eclipses. In the ninth century the southern cities empty, but life goes on in the north, where Chichen Itza rises.