Writing and time

Maya scribes wrote on stone, wood, pottery, and bark paper. They counted days so closely that their kings can be dated today.

The Long Count

This section returns in December.

Glyphs on the road

Markers on the causeway from Cobá to Yaxuná carry the glyph sakbih, “white road,” so the word that names this site was in use in Classic times (Stuart, 2006). The word for writing and painting has a separate page, tz’ihb.

Four books

Four Maya books survive from before the conquest. Each is a screenfold of bark paper, painted on both sides (Vail, 2006). Many more were burned after the conquest, as at Maní in 1562 (University of North Carolina Libraries, n.d.).

The Dresden Codex

Now in Dresden, Germany. The library dates it to 1200 to 1250. Its 39 leaves carry ritual calendars, tables that follow Venus, eclipse records, and a great flood on its last page (Library of Congress, n.d.). Water damage in 1945 makes the older facsimiles valued (FAMSI, n.d.).

The Madrid Codex

Now in the Museo de América, Madrid. How the book was made is studied in Ciudad Ruiz (2000). Its history and page count are to verify.

The Paris Codex

Now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. It is too fragile to show. It lay forgotten until 1859 (FAMSI, n.d.).

The Maya Codex of Mexico

Once called the Grolier Codex, now in the national anthropology library in Mexico City. It is an almanac of Venus (Coe et al., 2015). Looters found it, and for decades many scholars thought it a fake. Coe, Houston, Miller, and Taube argued it is genuine (2015), and INAH’s studies date it to 1021 to 1152 (INAH, 2022).

Madrid Codex record →Dresden Codex →

Sections to come

• The 260-day count and the 365-day year.
• How the glyphs were decoded, and by whom.
• Reading a name glyph, step by step.

Sources

• Ciudad Ruiz, A. (2000). El Códice Tro-Cortesiano del Museo de América de Madrid. Revista Española de Antropología Americana, 30. https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/REAA/article/view/REAA0000110009A
• Coe, M., Houston, S., Miller, M., & Taube, K. (2015). The fourth Maya codex. In C. Golden, S. Houston, & J. Skidmore (Eds.), Maya archaeology 3 (pp. 116–167). Precolumbia Mesoweb Press. https://www.mesoweb.com/articles/Coe_etal/Fourth_Codex.pdf
• FAMSI. (n.d.). The Dresden Codex. https://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/codices/dresden.html
• FAMSI. (n.d.). The Paris Codex. https://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/codices/paris.html
• INAH. (2022, October 18). Boletín 530. https://www.inah.gob.mx/images/boletines/2022/530/Boletin%20530.pdf
• Kearns, R. (2013, January 4). Mayan ceremonies in Guatemala celebrate the new cycle. ICT. https://ictnews.org/archive/mayan-ceremonies-in-guatemala-celebrate-the-new-cycle/
• Kennett, D. J., Hajdas, I., Culleton, B. J., Belmecheri, S., Martin, S., Neff, H., Awe, J., Graham, H. V., Freeman, K. H., Newsom, L., Lentz, D. L., Anselmetti, F. S., Robinson, M., Marwan, N., Southon, J., Hodell, D. A., & Haug, G. H. (2013). Correlating the ancient Maya and modern European calendars with high-precision AMS 14C dating. Scientific Reports, 3, Article 1597. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep01597
• Library of Congress. (n.d.). The Dresden Codex. Catalog record. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667917/
• Stuart, D. (2006). The inscribed markers of the Coba-Yaxuna causeway and the glyph for sakbih. Mesoweb. https://www.mesoweb.com/stuart/notes/Sacbe.pdf
• Tsukamoto, K., Esparza Olguín, O. Q., Salazar Lama, D., Campaña Valenzuela, L. E., Velázquez Morlet, A., & López Camacho, J. (2026). The emergence of kingship and early Long Counts in the Maya kingdom of El Palmar, Campeche, Mexico. Ancient Mesoamerica. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536126100984
• University of North Carolina Libraries. (n.d.). Diego de Landa (1524–1579), Relation des choses de Yucatan. Exhibit. https://exhibits.lib.unc.edu/exhibits/show/maya/decipherment/relation-des-choses-de-yucatan
• Vail, G. (2006). The Maya codices. Annual Review of Anthropology, 35, 497–519. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.35.081705.123324

Every source the site uses is also on the Sources page. Links checked November 6, 2026.