Essay On The Mayan Writing System

One of the greatest advances in the development of a society is the establishment of a writing system. Along with writing systems, come other methods for keeping records. Writing can be anything from a series of images used to communicate ideas, to the full on use of characters that can be interpreted and spoken. The use and development of these systems of communication can greatly affect the development of a culture. With that in mind, I’d like to address how the use of text and other methods of recording information in early art assist in the development of a culture.

When discussing the topic of the development of early writing systems, one cannot do so without first thinking of the Mayans. The Mayans were the only ones to form the only writing system that was native to the Americas, and were also considered to be the masters of the art of mathematics. The Mayan writing system was often referred to as hieroglyphics, due to their resemblance to the method of Egyptian writing, although there is no relation. These symbols, called glyphs, were a combination of symbols used for the phonetic spelling of words today, and other characters. It is the only writing system of the Pre-Columbian New World that can completely represent spoken language to the same degree as the written language of the old world. Translating the Maya writings has been a long, and very tedious process. Some parts of it were first translated in the late 19th and early 20th century (mostly the parts having to do with numbers, the calendar, and astronomy), but major developments started in the 1960s and 1970s and kept coming thereafter, and now, the majority of Mayan texts can be read almost completely in their original languages. During the translation of the Ma...

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...or Olmec writing system have been found.

Another method of record keeping in the Pre-Columbian period was the quipu system. The Quipu is a system of knotted cords used by the Incas and its predecessors in the Andean region to store information important to their culture and civilization. For the Inca, the system helped collect data and keep records, ranging from monitoring tax obligations, collecting census records, calendar information, and military organization. The colors of the cords, the way they are connected, the placement of the cords, the spaces between them, the types of knots on them, and the placement of the knots are all part of the recording. For example, a yellow cord could represent gold or corn; or on a population quipu the first set of strands represented men, the second set women, and the third set children. Weapons were similarly labeled.