Mayan Codex Craft: Make a Maya Folding Book

Who Were the Maya and Why Did They Write Codices?

The Maya lived across what is today southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. Their civilisation flourished for more than 2,000 years, and at its height (around 250–900 CE) the Maya built towering stone pyramids, tracked the movements of the planets with astonishing accuracy, and developed an incredibly detailed calendar system.

To record everything they observed and believed, the Maya created folding books known as codices. A Maya codex was made from long strips of bark paper (called amate) or deer skin, coated in a thin layer of white plaster, and folded into a zigzag shape so it could be opened up like an accordion. Skilled scribes called ah ts’ib painted the pages with colourful symbols using brushes made from animal hair.

Inside these books, scribes recorded:

• Astronomical observations — including the cycles of Venus, eclipses of the Sun and Moon, and the movement of the stars.
• Calendars and almanacs — to predict good days for planting, harvesting, war, and religious ceremonies.
• Lists of gods and rituals — describing how priests should perform offerings.
• Histories and prophecies — recording important events and what was thought to come next.

Understanding Maya Writing: Glyphs and Symbols

Maya writing is one of the most beautiful and complex writing systems ever invented. Instead of using letters like the English alphabet, the Maya used glyphs — small picture-symbols that could stand for either a whole word or a sound. Hundreds of these glyphs were carved on temple walls, painted on pottery, etched into jade, and of course written in codices.

There were two main types of Maya glyphs:

• Logograms — picture-symbols that represented an entire word, such as "jaguar" or "king."
• Phonetic signs — symbols that represented a syllable (a consonant + vowel sound). Just like the letters of an alphabet, these could be combined to spell out words and sentences.

If you went to a Maya school, you would have spent years learning to recognise thousands of different picture-symbols. You would also be taught to link them together in your mind, like a series of clues, to find out what they meant. Maya scribes were among the most respected members of society — many of them were nobles or even royalty.

Names of the Days

The symbols above represent some of the names of the 20 days from the Maya farmers' calendar (called the Haab'). The 20 days made up one month, and there were 18 months of 20 days plus a special 5-day period at the end, giving a 365-day year. Each day was paired with a number from 1 to 13 to give a date such as "Three Vulture" or "Seven Deer."

Days were often named after familiar creatures or natural things — like the lizard, jaguar, vulture, water, wind, or maize. Each day also had its own god who watched over it. Maya children were frequently named after the day on which they were born, so two siblings might have completely different "day names" depending on the moment they entered the world.

The Maya Number System

The Maya were brilliant mathematicians. Their number system used only three signs:

• A dot (•) stood for the number one.
• A bar (—) stood for the number five.
• A shell shape stood for zero.

By stacking these symbols, you could write any number. For example, two dots above a bar means 5 + 2 = 7, and three bars stacked together means 15. Remarkably, the Maya were one of the very first civilisations in the world to use the concept of zero — long before it appeared in European mathematics.

How to Make Your Own Mayan Codex: Step-by-Step

Now it's your turn to be a Maya scribe! This craft is perfect for school history projects, social studies presentations, or just a rainy-afternoon activity. It takes about 45 minutes (plus drying time) and is suitable for ages 8 and up with light adult help for cutting.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Mayan Codex