Stephen D. Houston explores the complex system of Maya writing from ancient Mexico and Central America in this six-part series.

Maya writing of ancient Mexico and Central America represents a system of script and picture that never quite split apart yet never quite fused. In clouding such boundaries, text and image confound the idea of representation, and thus question distinctions among written records, depiction, and life itself. Recent decipherments of glyphs bring these views to the surface, allowing worlds long silent to disclose their secrets.

The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts were established in 1949 to bring to the people of the United States the results of the best contemporary thought and scholarship bearing upon the subject of the fine arts.