For two millennia, the ancestral Maya of Mexico and Central America created a rich legacy of image and text. “Vital Signs” explains how this graphic system worked, shedding new light on its design, intent, and authorship.
The Maya were one of the few peoples of the ancient world with hieroglyphic writing. They developed an innovative form of visual representation in which written signs, known as “glyphs,” took their shape from pictures.
The book is by archaeologist and anthropologist Stephen Houston.