ScienceNorth America

The Maya Classic period

250 – 900

A full writing system, zero as a number, and a calendar spanning millennia

In depth

The script was deciphered only between the 1950s and the 1980s, partly by a Russian scholar working without access to the sites. When the inscriptions could finally be read they turned out to be political history: king lists, wars, alliances — not the peaceful astronomer culture earlier scholars had imagined. The Maya were never one realm but dozens of rival city-states.

For children

The Maya had the only complete writing system in the Americas, able to record anything at all. They used the number zero long before Europe, and calculated the movements of the moon and Venus to within minutes over centuries.

Connects to

The Classic Maya250
Teotihuacán100 – 550
The Maya cities abandonedJan 900
The Olmec colossal heads1,201 BCE – 401 BCE

Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org