Only 5 cultures in the history of the world have developed a unique writing system. These ancient cultures included the Sumerians(who created cuneiform writing and lived in Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq), the Chinese, the Harappans (who lived along the Indus River in what is today Pakistan, the Egyptians and the Maya.

When was Maya writing first developed?

Writing was first developed among the Olmec around 600 BC. The Maya system records both the words and the grammer - vocabulary, phonetics and syntax - of the spoken language.

The ancient Maya wrote on many different objects including paper, wood, stone, stucco, shell, bone, cloth, pottery and animal hide. Although great progress has been made on deciphering ancient writing, there are still many glyphic sighs that cannot be read and texts whose meaning is not yet known.