Of all the Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican scripts, Classic period Mayan inscriptions are the most numerous and include many lengthy narrative accounts inscribed on architectural features and painted on ceramic vessels. The history of the decipherment of the logophonetic Mayan script is long and colorful, marked by major breakthroughs in the 1970s and 1980s. The following list provides entry points into the major themes in the study of Mayan inscriptions including the history of decipherment, script structure and grammar, and how interpretations of Mayan inscriptions have influenced our understanding of Classic Mayan culture.

• Justeson, John S., and Lyle Campbell. Phoneticism in Mayan Hieroglyphic Writing. State University of New York at Albany. Institute for Mesoamerican Studies no. 9. Albany: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York at Albany, 1984.
  Most of the papers in this book were presented at a conference at SUNY Albany in April 1979. Some deal with decipherment directly and make important contributions by methodologically and ingeniously marshaling evidence of many kinds in support of specific phonetic--that is, linguistic--interpretations of one or more signs in particular contexts. They refer to the significant published works in the development of the discipline and carefully give credit in chronological order for the insights and findings they rely on.--American Anthropologist 88 (September 1986). John G. Fought, reviewer.

• Houston, Stephen D. Maya Glyphs. London: Published for the Trustees of the British Museum by British Museum Publications, 1989.
  Clearly written and well-illustrated, this book offers overviews of the origin and development of Mayan script, as well as its written and grammatical structure drawing on the work of important scholars of Mayan epigraphy from the 1970s and 1980s.

• Brown, Cecil H. "Hieroglyphic Literacy in Ancient Mayaland: Inferences from Linguistic Data." Current Anthropology no. 32 (August/October 1991): 489-496.
  Brown uses linguistic data on the distribution of the words "write" and "read" in modern, recorded Mayan languages as a procedure to determine the extent of hieroglyphic literacy among the Classic Maya.

• Culbert, Patrick T., ed. Classic Maya Political History: Hieroglyphic and Archaeological Evidence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
  A landmark collection of articles from a 1986 School of American Research Advanced Seminar in which 11 leading epigraphers, art historians, and archaeologists critically examined available evidence about the Classic Maya political world, integrating diverse forms of material data with a sometimes bewildering wealth of hieroglyphic decipherments...the volume illustrates anew that both the data sets and the perspectives of archaeology and epigraphy are strongly complementary, and powerfully encourages the growing trend to integrate these approaches in research designs.--American Antiquity 58, no. 2 (1993). Wendy Ashmore, reviewer

• Houston, Stephen, and David Stuart. "On Maya Hieroglyphic Literacy." Current Anthropology no. 33 (December 1992): 589-593.
  This paper examines the evidence regarding hieroglyphic literacy and the social dimensions of hieroglyphic writing revealed by recent advances in hieroglyphic decipherment.

• Reents-Budet, D., et. al. Painting the Maya Universe: Royal Ceramics of the Classic Period. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, Duke University Museum of Art, 1994.
  Painting the Maya Universe was published to complement an exhibition of the same name. The exhibition was organized by Duke University Museum of Art and traveled to several cities in 1994 and 1995. The publication brings together many perspectives including the art historical, archaeological, epigraphical, and ethnohistorical to examine 6th to 8th century Mayan pottery featuring both pictorial and hieroglyphic images. Reents-Budet's analysis confirms Michael Coe's argument that Classic Mayan ceramics hold more than chronologic information. The book is beautifully illustrated with line art and Justin Kerr's stunning rollout photographs of vessels featured in the exhibition.

• Bricker, Victoria R. "Advances in Maya Epigraphy." Annual Review of Anthropology 24 (1995): 215-235.
  This article reports on the progress made over the past 20 years regarding various aspects of Mayan script including the subjects depicted in the monumental inscriptions, the grammatical structure, and the astronomical content of hieroglyphic texts in the codices and on the monuments.

• Martin, Simon, and Nikolai Grube. "Maya Superstates." Archaeology 48 (November/December 1995): 41-46.
  New information uncovered within a body of glyphic data that had been overlooked reveals that certain Maya kingdoms were consistently more powerful than others and apparently manipulated the affairs of weaker polities. The article discusses Maya emblem glyphs and two of the more powerful kingdoms in the Classic period (A.D. 300-900), Tikal and Calakmul.

• Houston, Stephen D., and David Stuart. "Of Gods, Glyphs and Kings: Divinity and Rulership Among the Classic Maya." Antiquity 70 (June 1996): 289-312.
  Advances in the decipherment of Maya writing now allow us to address several fundamental questions about the conceptual and religious underpinnings of Maya rulership. Of particular interest are the ritual expressions of relationships between deities and kings in the political and social arenas of various kingdoms. Elements, strategies, and probable objectives of divine kingship among the classic Maya are identified, and their relation to a complex, localized theology is emphasized.

• Coe, Michael D. The Art of the Maya Scribe. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998.
  Two experts decipher Mayan writing in terms of its meaning and aesthetics, counting it as one of the world's great calligraphic traditions. Coe (anthropology emeritus, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University) and Kerr, whose rollout camera revolutionized the study of Mayan pictorial ceramics and their texts, explore the script's origins, character, and writing techniques as well as the exalted world of the Maya artist-scribes who kept the holy books.--Books in Print.

• Coe, Michael D. Breaking the Maya Code. 2nd ed. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1999.
  An eloquent account of the process and personalities involved in deciphering the Mayan script.

• Houston, Stephen, John Robertson, and David Stuart. "The Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions." Current Anthropology 41, no. 3 (June 2000): 321-356.
  A provocative and controversial paper that argues that epigraphical and historical analysis indicate the existence of a single and coherent prestige language identified as Classic Ch'olti'an during the Classic Maya period. According to the authors this unique language included widespread features in script and can be affiliated with modern day Eastern Ch'olan languages.

• Martin, Simon, and Nikolai Grube. Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens: Deciphering the Dynasties of the Ancient Maya. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000.
  Martin and Grube are strong contributors to the revolutionary decipherment of royal epigraphy and, here, sum up the tales that are now emerging. The authors include the latest -- and more complicated -- results of their assessment of links among the 'city states'...The work is highly technical but readers are spared the methodological apparatus. ---Antiquity, March 2001. N. James, Neil Brodie, Simon Stoddart, and Helen Strudwick, reviewers.

• Bach, Caleb. "Rolling Out the Maya Universe: Justin Kerr's Rollout Camera Aids in Deciphering Hieroglyphic Writing on Mayan Vases." Américas 53, no. 6 (November/December 2001): 30-39.
  Photographer and self-taught Mayanist Justin Kerr developed a peripheral camera for rolling out artifactual images as one sustained strip...Because of his invention, scholars steeped in epigraphy, iconography, linguistics, lexicography, and other specialized disciplines have been able to decipher the hieroglyphic writing left by the Maya on buildings, stelae, and clay vessels...Beyond creating rollouts, Kerr decided to create a photographic catalog of vases, each identified by number. The entire archive is available on an Internet site: http://www.mayavase.com .---from Readers Guide.

• Houston, Stephen, Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos, and David Stuart, eds. The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001.
  This collection of classic articles from publications unavailable to most readers includes papers on histories of the interpretation of Maya glyphs, accounts by Spaniards who witnessed the writing of the glyphs, and research by twentieth century scholars.

• Houston, Stephen D., and Zachary Nelson. A Thematic Bibliography of Ancient Maya Writing . Champaign, IL: Research Press, 2001.
  Houston and Nelson explain that this bibliography was originally developed by Houston to be included in The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing (2001), but due to its length, this was not possible. While Houston and Nelson admit that their thematic bibliography is meant to be "thorough but not exhaustive," it is a unique and valuable guide into references on the full range of topics relevant to Mayan writing systems. In addition, it provides references for important Mayan sites, ancient writing systems in general, and on linguistic theory regarding writing systems.

• Montgomery, John. Dictionary of Maya Hieroglyphs. New York: Hippocrene Books Incorporated, 2002.
  Based on the painstaking scholarship of epigraphers, this text includes entries for more than 1,200 glyphs and glyph compounds. Arranged alphabetically by phonetic spelling, each entry includes the hieroglyph, its part of speech, meaning and phonetic spelling, and translation from glyph to present-day Mayan...There are numerous books that present the "how-to's" of reading Maya hieroglyphs, but this text is the only dictionary of the glyphs themselves.--Choice 40, issue 7 (March 2003).

• Reents-Budet, Dorie, and Ronald Bishop. "What Can We Learn from a Maya Vase?" Archaeology 56, no. 2 (March/April 2003): 26-29.
  The authors use improvements in hieroglyphic decipherment and chemical technology in an analysis of two Classic Mayan vases, one unprovenienced and one archaeologically excavated, to provide insights into the economic, political, and social exploits of the Maya.

• Maya Epigraphic Database
  http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/med/home.html
  As its name implies, this is a database of Maya glyphs, and not a page with pretty pictures or good introductory information. The Mayan Epigraphic Database Project (MED) is an experiment in networked scholarship with the purpose of enhancing Classic Mayan epigraphic research. MED consists of a relational database of glyphs ("gnumbers"), images, phonetic values ("pvalues"), and semantic values ("svalues") according to the consensus among various American Mayanists (MacLeod and Reents-Budet 1994). The site also includes the beginning of an archive of digitally transcribed Mayan texts. Unfortunately, the site has not been updated since December 14, 2001.