Found the oldest Maya script

Newly discovered hieroglyphs show that the Mayans used a complex writing system 150 years earlier than previously anticipated.

New figurative carvings are found in a Mayan temple in San Bartolo, Guatemala

The carvings, dating from around 250 BC, are found intact on plaster walls and debris in the famous pyramid-shaped structure in Las Pinturas, in San Bartolo, Guatemala.

Writing appears in Mesopotamia, Egypt and India about 3,000 BC. However, the first complete characters - a series of clear signs that tell a story - are not yet present in the New World until 400-300 BC. These embryonic texts are the offspring of the Zapotecs in the Oaxaca valley, south central Mexico. Most early Maya scripts appear only from 150-250 AD.

Because the Zapotec script emerged much earlier, researchers believed that the Mayans were affected by it.

The earliest Mayan single carvings - can represent people's names or a calendar symbol - date back to about 600 BC. However, they are not considered written. New hieroglyphs are found much more complicated, said project leader William Saturno from New Hampshire University.

"This is the most complete and clear development script," Saturno said. "It does not say that the Mayans invented writing and not the Zapotec, but it led us to the question of the origin and complexity of these origins."

One thing seems certain: The Maya script is not affected by Zapotec.

Although the writing is very clear, scientists still cannot 'translate' anything in the new discovery.

T. An (according to LiveScience)