"Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: Introduction" by John Eric Sidney Thompson

This volume is dedicated to the Maya script, also commonly known as Maya hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently the only deciphered Mesoamerican writing system.

Maya writing was called "hieroglyphics" or "hieroglyphs" by early European explorers of the 18th and 19th centuries who did not understand it but found its general appearance reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphs, to which however the Maya writing system is not at all related.

Contents
Preface
Illustrations
Tables
1 Introduction
2 Principles of Maya Glyphic Wr iting
3 The Cycle of 2 60 Days
4 The Year of 365 Days
5 Methods of Recording Numbers
6 The Long Count
7 Distance Numbers
8 Period Endings, Anniversaries, and Katun Counts
9 Ritual istic and Astronom ical Cycles
10 The Moon
11 Soulless Mechanisms and Magical Formulae
12 Aids to Decipherment
13 Glances Backw ard and a Look Ahead
APPENDIX 1: 0 ivinator y Almanacs in the Books of Chilam Salam
APPENDIX 2: The Cor relation Question
APPENDIX 3: Whorfs Attempts to Decipher the Maya Hieroglyphs
APPENDIX 4: Maya Calcu lations Far into the Past and into the Future
APPENDIX 5: Determinants
Hieroglyphic Glossary and I ndex
References
General Index
Illustrations


About the Author
Sir John Eric Sidney Thompson (31 December 1898 - 9 September 1975) was an English archeologist and Mayanist epigrapher, regarded as the pre-eminent mid-20th century scholar of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. He was generally known as J. Eric S. Thompson in print and Eric Thompson to his colleagues.