A Maya mathematician wrote his formulas on a wall next to the palace, for his own eyes only
In 2010 at Xultun in Guatemala, a small room was uncovered by accident, its walls covered in calendrical calculations and signed Saktanwash — not a monumental inscription carved for the public, but a Maya mathematician's private notes, kept for his own reference.
The video won't play here. Listen to the audio instead:
The argument · tap a timestamp to hear it
Deciphering Maya writing took nearly a century, not one flash of insight
Cracking Maya script was not a single Rosetta Stone-style eureka moment. Individual signs were recognized as early as the 19th century, and words or phrases were deciphered nearly a hundred years ago, but genuine understanding of how the writing system works only arrived in the 1980s. Stuart describes it as a hundred years of small breakthroughs accumulated by many people — a sign identified here, a substitution pattern spotted there — until systematic understanding finally pulled it all together.
— David StuartScribes loved to show off, so Maya writing was never standardized
Unlike Egyptian hieroglyphs, which stayed conservative and legible over thousands of years, Maya scribes actively sought variation. The same king's name appears again and again in the inscriptions, and it is written differently every time, because the scribe was showing off his own inventiveness, picking different sign variants to spell the same syllable. That deliberate artistry and arbitrariness is one reason decipherment was so unusually hard.
— David StuartMaya script was a court language reserved for the elite
The "Classic Mayan" of the inscriptions functions more like a courtly lingua franca across city-states than like ordinary people's everyday speech — roughly five million people still speak Mayan languages today, but the inscriptions correspond to a specific, carefully trained official written language. Whichever Maya city-state you were in, if you were a noble or a priest you were trained in this same language and script, which is why inscriptions from different cities can be read against one another.
— David StuartWhat survives is epic; what is missing is the ledgers
Maya writing records almost nothing but ritual, dynastic history, and wartime alliances — no economic records survive, no tribute lists, no merchants' market dealings. The host draws a contrast with Mycenaean Linear B: there, scholars have a mass of dull bureaucratic records but can barely name a single verifiable king, and they envy the Maya their epic narrative; Maya scholars, meanwhile, lack exactly the everyday accounts the other side dreams of.
— David StuartTikal and Calakmul: the Maya world's two superpowers
The Classic period Maya world (roughly AD 200 to 900) consisted of many city-states, and by the 6th and 7th centuries Tikal (the Mutul dynasty) and Calakmul (the Kanul dynasty) had risen as the two centers of power, often called the superpowers of Maya politics. The two were not far apart, yet they were mortal enemies for centuries; inscriptions record repeated alliance maneuvering and multiple wars between them, with victory changing hands and neither able to crush the other outright.
— David StuartA noblewoman whose family defected is remembered better than her husband
Maya royal women were often used as marriage-alliance currency, but they were never mere accessories — many queens were powerful figures who led armies themselves. Stuart tells one specific case: in the 7th century a member of the Mutul royal house defected for some reason to the mortal enemy Kanul, and his daughter was later used by the Kanul royal house to weave further alliances, becoming the mother of a powerful ruler at Naranjo. She appears repeatedly in inscriptions and stelae at multiple sites, while her husband's identity was only confirmed a few years ago — because the inscriptions barely mention him.
— David StuartGaps in the dynastic lines are the fingerprints of political upheaval
Maya dynasties typically ran about 400 years, but the inscriptions often show gaps in the succession of 50 to 100 years, usually corresponding to a conquest or an interruption of rule. The wars between Mutul and Kanul were exactly this kind of back-and-forth: Kanul wins this round, Mutul turns the tables the next. Toward the end of the Classic period, in the decades before the so-called great collapse, the conflict escalated markedly, to the point of records of kings being driven out and fleeing from place to place.
— David StuartThe private notes beside the palace: formulas written for the author himself
In 2010 at the site of Xultun (舒尔顿), a looters' trench accidentally exposed a small painted chamber, its walls densely covered in thumbnail-sized miniature inscriptions. The team spent years on digital scanning and restoration, and the latest paper confirms that one passage is a mathematical formula integrating the calendrical cycles of the solar year, Venus, Mars and others, signed at the end "Chehen Saktanwash" (thus says Saktanwash). The room sits right next to the palace and looks more like a Maya mathematician's own whiteboard than anything written for the public.
— David StuartIn their own words · checked verbatim
Small, incremental breakthroughs, you might say. You know, a sign here, a sign there. Maya hieroglyphs were words or phrases deciphered almost 100 years ago.
David Stuart3:03
But each time it looks different because the scribe is being playful. And there's a certain amount of artistry and playfulness baked into the system that I don't think exists in a lot of other writing systems.
David Stuart7:11
It is a lingua franca. It seems to be that in ancient times, this was a courtly language, an elite kind of formal language for official texts that didn't always reflect what the general population was speaking.
David Stuart10:22
But all they have is the bureaucratic texts that survive in Linear B. And you want that. You want that boring bureaucracy stuff to get more of that insight. And they want the epic tales and you've got the epic tales.
Tristan Hughes12:24
The prominence of women in Maya history is really remarkable and something that I think is important to highlight.
David Stuart23:56
Literally, we see Maya kings on the run going from one place to another, only a few decades before the so-called collapse.
David Stuart33:31
But imagine stumbling across the office of a Maya mathematician and the whiteboard is there. It's been abandoned for 1500 years and then you have to kind of figure out what's there.
David Stuart45:12
Figures
| Speakers of Mayan languages today | About 5 million | 9:18 |
| Time span of Classic period Maya civilization | AD 200 to 900 | 19:46 |
| Typical length of a Maya dynasty | About 400 years | 33:31 |
| Cacao bean tribute quantities recorded on ceramic inscriptions | 8,000 or 32,000 beans | 48:18 |
| Year the Xultun painted chamber was discovered | 2010 | 41:03 |
Glossary
- Classic Mayan
- The courtly elite written language of Maya inscriptions; not a record of commoners' speech
- uhul ahau
- A Maya ruler's title, meaning a divine king with supernatural connections
- Ahpitz
- A title in Maya inscriptions, "ballplayer," used for nobles or kings who took part in the ballgame
How to listen
History enthusiasts interested in Maya inscriptions, Mesoamerican archaeology, or the history of script decipherment, and anyone who wants to hear the latest findings from the field.
The long stretches of repeated "Thank you" around 39:00 and at the end of the episode are blank audio filler with no content; skip them.