ADVANCES IN MAYA EPIGRAPHY

During the past twenty years, significant progress has been made in de termining the nature of the Maya script, the subjects covered in the m onumental inscriptions, the grammatical structure of Maya writing, and the astronomical content of hieroglyphic texts on the monuments and i n the codices. The script is unequivocally logosyllabic in nature, con sisting of a mixture of logographic, syllabic, and semantic signs. The monumental texts are primarily concerned with dynastic history, inclu ding references to the births, marriages, military exploits, accession s to office, and deaths of rulers and their families, as well as the r ituals that they performed. The grammar of hieroglyphic texts correspo nds closely in structure to that of the Cholan and Yucatecan languages that were spoken in the region where hieroglyphs occur. And the pre-C olumbian Maya were accomplished astronomers who produced complex table s for predicting solar and lunar eclipses, the stations of Venus and M ars, and solstices and equinoxes.