What writing system did the ancient Maya use?

The ancient Maya used Maya hieroglyphs, also called the Maya script, as their writing system.

Maya script was a logosyllabic system: some signs represented complete words or morphemes, while others represented syllables. Scribes could combine these elements in flexible ways, using phonetic signs to clarify how a logogram should be read. This made the script capable of recording names, dates, political events, religious texts, and everyday language.

The earliest identifiable Maya inscriptions date to the 3rd century BCE, and the script remained in use into the Spanish colonial period. Glyphs were carved into monuments, painted on ceramics and walls, molded in stucco, and written in bark-paper codices. Texts were commonly arranged in paired columns and read from left to right and top to bottom.

“Hieroglyphs” is a descriptive term borrowed from the visual resemblance to Egyptian writing; the two scripts are unrelated. The Maya system was also not an alphabet. Modern decipherment accelerated in the 20th century, and roughly 80 percent of its signs’ sounds can now be read, though interpretation remains incomplete.