A previously unknown ancient mask from southern Mexico contains an inscription that shows the language used there prior to the Maya civilization remains undecipherable, according to a new study by ...

When Martha Macri was growing up in Vinita, Okla., her father liked to teach her words in Cherokee. On Sundays they would visit a full-blood uncle who had a copy of the famous syllabary invented by ...

The cultural background of Maya writing -- The nature of the Maya script -- Time and the calendar -- Royal lives and royal rituals -- Places and polities -- Dynastic names and titles -- Relationships ...

The writings left on tombs and tablets by the great civilizations of the ancient past have mostly now been read. This intriguing book on the strange art of “decipherment” focuses on those scripts that ...

National Geographic archaeologist George E. Stuart reported in 1975 on the scientists who sought to decode the ancient language—and the looters who stood in their way.

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... A vertical column of 10 glyphic words, uncovered last year in ruins in Guatemala, is unreadable even by the most expert scholars, but they know what it means ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Literary critics, cultural scholars and aficionados of the Mayans, the only fully literate people of the pre-Columbian Americas, have lined up to call the first fully illustrated ...

Literary critics, cultural scholars and aficionados of the Mayans, the only fully literate people of the pre-Columbian Americas, have lined up to call the first fully illustrated survey of two ...

Tikal’s great plaza, at the heart of what was one of the most powerful city-states in the Americas, is surrounded by monumental structures: the stepped terraces of the North Acropolis, festooned with ...