Writing Structure

Mayan writing seems to have begun on pottery and buildings, eventually building into screen-folded codices, such as the codices on the previous page. The word “codex” derives from a Latin word for a tree trunk or a wooden block. This is especially appropriate for the Maya codices, as they were made from processing the inner bark of fig (ficus) trees. In fact, “the Maya developed paper quite early in the millennium, which some sources suggest was as early as the 400s A.D. It was originally believed that the codices were made from maguey, a type of agave plant; however, in the early 1900s, the codices were studied in greater detail to determine their actual make-up. (“[A]unque también solían usarse piel de venado, tela de algodón y papel de maguey, aparentemente ningún material fue más usado que el kopó. [Although they also used deerskin, cotton fabric, and maguey paper, apparently nothing was used as much as kopó.]”)

The evolution of the bark paper seems to be fortuitous, with the Maya making types of cloth from the inner bark of trees. Unfortunately, few codices survive and little chemical or microscopic examination can be made without further damaging them. Here is an interesting example of how the Maya made paper from fig trees and one particularly fascinating tool that they used:

Because papermaking and writing were sacred duties, scribes and painters would begin the entire process by praying and potentially with a sacrifice. A good description of the process can be found on Thomas J. Tobin’s site, wherein he details his own experience at attempting to make authentic Maya paper, called huun (also called kopó, although today common referred to as amate paper). Tobin discovered that Michael Coe (who wrote about the Grolier Codex, as mentioned on the previous page) believed that the techniques of certain Central American native tribes might be extremely similar to the Maya ways of making paper. He described it as follows:

In contemporary Mexican villages, the entire process of making paper from a tree involves six steps:

1. Fig branches over 1.5 m. (5 ft.) in length and about 25 mm. (1 in.) in diameter are harvested.
2. The freshly cut branches are slit lengthwise, and the bark (outer and inner) is stripped off in one piece.
3. The outer bark is peeled off from the strips, and the inner bark soaked in running water; the latex (present in all Ficus species) is allowed to coagulate, and scraped off.
4. Nixtamalization is then carried out on the bark fibers; this is directly comparable to the way dried maize kernels are converted into a hominy-like substance, nixtamal, by alkalizing the kernels in lime mixed with water. In the case of bark paper, the inner bark fibers are first dried and then boiled in a pot containing the same water in which maize kernels had been left to soak, along with more lime or lye from wood ash.
5. The now pliable bast-fibers are removed from the solution, rinsed in cold water to remove traces of the alkali, and placed in a large gourd for further processing.
6. The nixtamalized fibers are cut to conform to the dimensions of a flat, wooden drying-board and laid on it in a grid formation, with the first fibers laid lengthwise, and the next laid crosswise-in other words, the constituent fiber layers are at right angles to each other, exactly as in the preparation of papyrus in Egypt. Then, with the goal of felting the loose fibers together, the whole is pounded with a striated beater; this instrument is now totally of wood, but in pre-Columbian times beaters were of stone held in wooden hafts. (Coe, 143-144)

Tobin found other sources that wrote closer to the time of the conquistadors, and they suggested that the fibers were left in a river or stream over night to soften them and to allow the natural latex to rise and be scraped off. After the Maya stripped the fibers and let them soak in running water (a stream/river) overnight, the paper was boiled in a lime-water mixture. Then they would use the bark beater (discussed in the video above) to help the fibers spread and become softer to form a writing surface. Tobin discovered that the bark beater left a distinctive mark on the fibers of the paper, which created a sort of watermark. After smoothing the fibers, they were laid in a board form or frame to dry in a crisscrossing pattern. “Natural gums were used as a bonding substance to hold the pulp together.” If the Maya codex had more pages than were able to be fit on one screen-folded page (which would be several meters long), the scribes would glue the pieces together with gum pastes or felt the pieces together by pounding them together to again soften and attach the pulp fibers together.

After drying, the sheets would be bent into screen-folded sheets (i.e., an accordion fold) to form a codex for writing. They were folded precisely, although no precise lines or markings show how the Maya determined where exactly to fold each section. Tobin created a wooden block of a specific size as a guide. The Maya prepared each sheet with a lime coating (sometimes called a stucco) for writing on, which was then potentially smoothed as well.