Editing Writing (section)

=== Mesoamerica ===
<!-- fringe The [[Cascajal Block]], a stone slab with 3,000-year-old proto-writing, was discovered in the Mexican state of [[Veracruz]] and is an example of the oldest script in the Western Hemisphere, preceding the oldest [[Zapotec writing]] by approximately 500 years.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Wilford |first=John Noble |author-link=John Noble Wilford |date=15 September 2006 |title=Writing May Be Oldest in Western Hemisphere |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/science/15writing.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180727145612/https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/science/15writing.html |archive-date=27 July 2018 |access-date=30 March 2008 |work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Briggs |first=Helen |date=14 September 2006 |title='Oldest' New World writing found |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5347080.stm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080403005953/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5347080.stm |archive-date=3 April 2008 |access-date=30 March 2008 |publisher=BBC}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rodríguez Martínez |first=Maria del Carmen |last2=Ceballos |first2=Ponciano Ortíz |last3=Coe |first3=Michael D. |last4=Diehl |first4=Richard A. |last5=Houston |first5=Stephen D. |last6=Taube |first6=Karl A. |last7=Calderón |first7=Alfredo Delgado |date=15 September 2006 |title=Oldest Writing in the New World |journal=Science |volume=313 |issue=5793 |pages=1610–1614 |bibcode=2006Sci...313.1610R |doi=10.1126/science.1131492 |pmid=16973873 |s2cid=35140904}}</ref> It is thought to be [[Olmec]]. -->

Of several [[pre-Columbian]] scripts in [[Mesoamerica]], the one that appears to have been best developed, and the only one to be deciphered, is the [[Maya script]]. The earliest inscription identified as Maya dates to the 3rd century&nbsp;BC.{{sfnp|Saturno|Stuart|Beltrán|2006|pp=1281–1283}} Maya writing used logograms complemented by a set of syllabic glyphs, somewhat similar in function to modern Japanese writing.