A catalog of Maya hieroglyphics

A Catalog of Maya Hieroglyphics was compiled by J. Eric S. Thompson, a preeminent Mayanist of the twentieth century, and published in 1962. It served as a landmark reference work, attempting to systematize the complex and often enigmatic corpus of Maya glyphic writing by assigning an alphanumeric 'T-number' to each distinct sign. This classification system was designed to provide scholars with a universal language for cataloging inscriptions, facilitating comparative study across disparate archaeological sites.

The volume emerged from Thompson's long-standing research under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, which had been the primary driver of Maya studies for decades. While subsequent breakthroughs in the phonetic decipherment of Maya script in the 1970s and 1980s fundamentally transformed the understanding of the writing system, Thompson's catalog remains a foundational document in the history of archaeology. It is widely respected as a monumental achievement in structural analysis, even as the interpretative context surrounding these glyphs has evolved.