One of six cradles of civilization thought to have developed writing independently
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Mesoamerican writing systems" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR(January 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
Mesoamerica, along with Mesopotamia and China, is one of three known places in the world where writing is thought to have developed independently.[1] Mesoamerican scripts deciphered to date are a combination of logographic and syllabic systems. They are often called hieroglyphs due to the iconic shapes of many of the glyphs, a pattern superficially similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs. Fifteen distinct writing systems have been identified in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, many from a single inscription.[2] The limits of archaeological dating methods make it difficult to establish which was the earliest and hence the progenitor from which the others developed. The best documented and deciphered Mesoamerican writing system, and the most widely known, is the classic Maya script. Earlier scripts with poorer and varying levels of decipherment include the Olmec hieroglyphs, the Zapotec script, and the Isthmian script, all of which date back to the 1st millennium BC. An extensive Mesoamerican literature has been conserved, partly in indigenous scripts and partly in postconquest transcriptions in the Latin script.
After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521, Spanish colonial authorities and Catholic Church missionaries aimed to purge indigenous culture, religion and traditional institutions, which included the destruction of texts of Mesoamerican and pre-Colombian origin. However, some Mesoamerican texts were spared, particularly from the Yucatán of southern Mexico, recording the languages of the area. These surviving texts give anthropologists and historians valuable insight into the origins of Mesoamerican languages, culture, religion, and government. Languages recorded in Mesoamerican writing include Classical Maya, Classical Nahuatl, Zapotec, Mixtec, and various other languages, particularly of the Oto-Manguean and Uto-Aztecan families.
^The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. Oxford University Press. 2012. p. 762. ISBN 9780195076189.
^Macri, Martha J. (1996). "Maya and Other Mesoamerican Scripts," in The World's Writing Systems. England: Oxford. pp. 172–182.
and 29 Related for: Mesoamerican writing systems information
where writing is thought to have developed independently. Mesoamerican scripts deciphered to date are a combination of logographic and syllabic systems. They...
Mixtec writing originated as a logographic writingsystem during the Post-Classic period in Mesoamerican history. Records of genealogy, historic events...
Indirect evidence includes similarities in calendar and writingsystems between subsequent Mesoamerican cultures, for which the Olmecs are sometimes considered...
Nahua people. The Aztec writingsystem derives from writingsystems used in Central Mexico, such as Zapotec script. Mixtec writing is also thought to descend...
a broad range of ideas. Writingsystems are distinguished from other symbolic communication systems in that a writingsystem is always associated with...
period, the first true Mesoamericanwritingsystems were developed in the Epi-Olmec and the Zapotec cultures. The Mesoamericanwriting tradition reached its...
Mesoamericanwritingsystems of varying degrees of complexity and completeness. Mesoamericanwritingsystems arose independently from other writing systems...
presence of Mesoamericanwritingsystems in some of these documents is also an important, but not defining, characteristic, for Mesoamerican codices can...
The Zapotec script is the writingsystem of the Zapotec culture and represents one of the earliest writingsystems in Mesoamerica. Rising in the late Pre-Classic...
is historically the native writingsystem of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamericanwritingsystem that has been substantially...
historical invention of writing, true writingsystems were preceded by systems of ideographic and mnemonic symbols called proto-writing, which were not fully...
cultural significance, and also in many cases with writing in some of the Mesoamericanwritingsystems. Iconographic decorations and texts on buildings...
substantial as the one found at La Mojarra in 1986. Cascajal block San Andrés (Mesoamerican site) Epi-Olmec culture Olmec hieroglyphs "Mask with Incised Design in...
possibly be a writingsystem or a set of writingsystems. Quipu Olmec – Olmec civilization, c. 600 BC, possibly the oldest Mesoamerican script. Epi-olmec...
This is a list of Mesoamerican pyramids or ceremonial structures. In most cases they are not true pyramids. There are hundreds of these done in many different...
covering London and South East England Isthmian script, one of the Mesoamericanwriting-systems Isthmian Steamship Company, a shipping company Isthmian Canal...
described and recorded the cultures of contemporary Mesoamerican ethnic groups. Among the various calendar systems in use, two were particularly central and widespread...
Mesoamerican languages are the languages indigenous to the Mesoamerican cultural area, which covers southern Mexico, all of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador...
(another old Mesoamerican script) Comparatively recent manuscripts and other texts written in undeciphered (and often unidentified) writingsystems; some of...
The Maya civilization (/ˈmaɪə/) was a Mesoamerican civilization that existed from antiquity to the early modern period. It is known by its ancient temples...
Hieroglyphic Writing and Texts Archived 2011-05-25 at the Wayback Machine. Kaufman, Terrence (2000) "Early MesoamericanWritingSystems" on University...
Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of prehispanic Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian (first human habitation until 3500 BCE);...
maintenance of sociocultural and political structure. Bound within the Mesoamerican belief systems, bloodletting was used as a tool to legitimize the ruling lineage's...
Mesoamerica developed several Indigenous writingsystems (independent of any influence from the writingsystems that existed in other parts of the world)...
Charlotte M. "Chichimec." In Davíd Carrasco (ed).The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures. : Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN 9780195188431 The Cambridge...
ethnohistory, a lienzo (Spanish for "canvas") is a sheet of cloth painted with indigenous Mesoamerican pictorial writing. Mesoamericanwritingsystems v t e...
evolving into the oracle bone script, and again by the emergence of Mesoamericanwritingsystems from about 900 BC. In the absence of written documents, most...
Chinese script, which developed around 1200 BC. The pre-Columbian Mesoamericanwritingsystems (including among others Olmec and Maya scripts) are generally...
artworks The Olmecs (/ˈɒlmɛks, ˈoʊl-/) were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they...
Global Information