Maya writing was the first actual script in the Americas

Ready to try reading some Maya hieroglyphics?

The Mayan hieroglyphic script was the only true writing system developed in the Americas prior to European colonization. Examples of the millennia-old script have been discovered on stone pillars, pottery, and texts known as codices. Here’s a Maya writing system study guide for the high achievers among us.

Maya civilization explained

The Maya built vast jungle cities that could accommodate up to 50,000 people, developed advanced mathematics—including the concept of zero—and created one of the Americas’ earliest writing systems. Though many cities later declined, their scientific and cultural achievements continue to shape our understanding of the ancient world.

A collection of ancient Mayan glyphs and pictographs

The Maya had a syllabic and pictorial writing style that featured many incredibly detailed glyphs. Click here to check out this ancient writing style (and maybe test out their related phonetic sounds).

Experience Maya culture through art—both ancient and modern

This gallery showcases how Maya culture endures through both ancient monuments and modern artistic expressions, tracing visual traditions from pre-Columbian carvings and murals to contemporary works created by Maya artists.

Cacao is a Maya word that survives today

In the 1980s, archaeologists finally deciphered Maya hieroglyphs in part by identifying known words. Maya scholar David Stuart notes that cacao—still used today—was one of the key linguistic anchors that unlocked ancient Maya texts.

Ceren: The Maya Pompeii (sans all the bodies)

The Maya village of Ceren in El Salvador was preserved by volcanic ash from 1,400 years ago, revealing insights into ancient Maya commoners' lives. Ceren villagers had autonomy in their daily activities, and excavations reveal evidence of communal decision-making and event hints at the presence of a community sauna. Dive into more of the archaeological finds on how businesses were run, how they prepared for disaster, and more.

Using AI to rewrite and revive Aztec tales

Despite being vanquished by the conquering Spaniards in the 16th century, the Aztecs' culture endured through their descendants and rituals, as well as texts that escaped destruction at the hands of the Europeans. These texts, known as codices and preserved in part by Christian monks, revealed intimate details of life as an Aztec in the Middle Ages. Today, AI programs allow students to learn the Aztec's language, Nahuatl, further preserving their heritage.

Archaeologists decode the first known sentence in what may be the oldest written alphabet

This five-minute video details the accidental discovery and subsequent decoding of the first known sentence in what's believed to be the oldest written alphabet. The Canaanite sentence was found on a Bronze Age hair comb unearthed in Tel Lachish, a city of the ancient Biblical Kingdom of Judah, during a dig focused on excavating the kingdom's first Iron Age city. The Canaanite language developed sometime between 3,000 and 1,000 BCE.

The first Americans arrived between 14,000 and 40,000 years ago

Early peoples migrated to the Americas via the Bering Land Bridge or coastal routes, spreading across the continent as hunter-gatherers. Archaeological sites in present-day New Mexico containing stone tools and animal bones mark some of the earliest confirmed evidence of human life in North America.

Who was the world's first author?

This article details the effort to define the world's first author, as supported by current archaeological evidence. Clay disks found in an ancient Sumerian city point to Enheduanna, a high priestess and daughter of Akkadian King Sargon, as the...

Hikers can walk through Maya routes on Mexico’s first long-distance trail

The Camino del Mayab is a 68-mile trail west of Cancún that follows ancient Maya paths and modern railways. Built in collaboration with local Maya communities, it promotes Indigenous culture, preserves heritage, and supports community-based tourism along the route.

The Chumash manufactured shell beads for thousands of years, eventually as money

The practice was unique to the Chumash among North American Indians. Some researchers have made the case theirs was the first use of money on the continent.

Sequoyah single-handedly invented a writing system for the Cherokee language

Without formal education, Cherokee citizen Sequoyah spent more than a decade in the early 1800s developing an 86-character syllabary—a writing system in which each symbol represents a spoken syllable—for the Cherokee language. Within a few years, most Cherokees could read and write it.

The Maya played a ballgame that symbolized the conflict between good and evil

Played on I-shaped courts across Mesoamerica, the Maya ballgame was a ritualized sport tied to cosmic struggle. Contrary to popular belief, the game did not involve mass sacrifice or basketball-style scoring.

Medieval monasteries preserved ancient knowledge through hand-copied books

Medieval monks and nuns lived in religious communities devoted to work and prayer. Still, their script-copying traditions had a lasting impact: through illuminated manuscripts, monasteries preserved hundreds of ancient texts that might have otherwise been lost.

Archaeologists discovered over 11,000 examples of graffiti in ancient Pompeii

Residents drew various figures and announcements on homes, temples, and walls, much of it preserved by volcanic ash. While some were clearly intended to be artistic, scholars have noted that the ancient graffiti has more in common with social media than with the tags and murals we associate today with the art form.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

Decoding the Indus Valley script

About 100 years ago, archaeologists uncovered an ancient city along the bank of the Indus River in eastern Pakistan that dated back to 2,500 BCE, though its urban planning, grid-like roads, brick-lined streets, multi-story homes, and sanitation and...

How the Inca used threads to communicate

One of the great mysteries of ancient Peru is that the Inca did not have a system of writing, but communicated with a system of strings tied with knots. This 4-minute video explores its possible uses.

'Book of the Dead' spells were often written directly on the mummy bandages

Archaeologists have identified over 200 spells inscribed on various funerary objects, including coffins, scrolls, mummy wrappings, and more. Later historians compiled the spells in single volumes, giving them the cinematic name "Book of the Dead."

The Antikythera mechanism is the oldest example of an analog computer

Remains of the 2,000-year-old hand-powered model of the solar system were uncovered in a shipwreck off the coast of Greece in 1900. It had been used to calculate the motions of the sun, moon, and planets to help forecast events such as solar eclipses.

History finds of 2021

The year’s most exciting discoveries include a Viking “piggy bank,” a lost Native American settlement and a secret passageway hidden behind a bookshelf

Homer's warrior tales were loosely based on the Mycenaean civilization

The great eighth-century BCE poet Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" portray a great warrior culture based in large palaces around the Aegean Sea in the Mediterranean. Historians and archaeologists have long believed Homer's stories were based on the Mycenaean civilization, which flourished several centuries before his time.

The common 'Three Sisters' mound-planting system used by natives

In the 17th century, Native Americans cultivated a three-plant combination of corn, beans, and squash—a symbiotic tradition dating back hundreds of years. The corn allowed the beans to climb, the beans fertilized the plants by extracting nitrogen from the air, and the squash leaves protected the soil and preserved moisture. Learn more about the tradition here.

The ancient Egyptians built prototypes of the modern Suez Canal

The idea to facilitate trade between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea and connect the Eurasian continent was apparent even to pharaohs in the second millennium BCE. Though no physical traces remain, contemporary accounts attest to early, shorter versions of the canal, including from Herodotus.

Explore the world's oldest constitutions

The 1789 US Constitution remains the oldest active written national constitution. Older systems exist—such as San Marino’s statutes or the Magna Carta—but they are not single, codified constitutions. See how other countries compare in this visualization.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

Artificial coral reefs have been 3D printed from nontoxic, biodegradable terracotta clay, which coral polyps have used as a foundation for rebuilding marine ecosystems.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

Recent research found that the brain doesn't seem to massively rewire following amputation—upending earlier beliefs about the cause of phantom limb pain.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

See how fireworks are made and learn how metals like magnesium and copper are responsible for different colors.

Poison ivy is in the same family as mangoes, cashews, and pistachios—and they all produce oily urushiol in their raw, unprocessed state—but they are typically prepared in ways to avoid causing human discomfort.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.