Stone to Silicon

Communication · c. 300 BCE

Maya script

Mesoamerica invents writing independently, with hundreds of glyphs mixing words and syllables.

The earliest Maya texts, from San Bartolo in Guatemala, date to about 300 BCE. The script was a complete logo-syllabic system used for history, astronomy and calendars, one of perhaps four independent inventions of writing in human history.

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Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2