The Egyptians and Mayans both used symbols to convey meaning in written language. However, the similarity pretty much stops there. This is remarkable, though, considering the fact that these cultures – millennia and worlds apart – developed similar writing systems.
The Egyptian hieroglyphics didn’t have punctuation and they were written in long lines of script. They were found on everything from paper, to stone, to jewelry. Reading the glyphs, you go from left to right. Egyptian glyphs are divided into phonograms - representing sounds and ideograms - representing ideas or objects.
The Mayans’ system used picture blocks to convey meaning. Their glyphs were mostly on stone. Reading the glyphs is very different from reading Egyptian glyphs. You go left to right and read a “pair” of glyphs and then go down to the next line and read the next pair. They form a sort of a zig-zag pattern. Thus, if reading, you would read block 1A, then block 1B. Then you go to the next line and read 2A, then block 2B. Mayan glyphs are divided into logograms to express meaning or syllabograms to represent sounds.
