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The writing-image association is one of the fundamental characteristics of art in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. This combination was particularly developed and used by the Maya for almost 20 centuries. Far from constituting only an artistic process, the joint use of these two modes of visual communication allowed the transcription of a very complex symbolic thought and was one of the main tools of the propaganda of the (political) power of the Maya elites. In this article, the main principles that govern the pre-Hispanic Maya scriptural and iconological systems will be exposed, especially insisting on the continuum comprised by text and image in their artistic expressions. Here will be particularly examined and discussed the swinging and mixing games between iconic or non-iconic figurativeness and symbolism in the construction of the signs used to generate meanings with which they entertain relationships of different kinds, often metaphorical, based on cultural conventions, rich of teachings for our understanding of the ancient Maya. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chronology of the Temple of the Owls, a construction of unusual characteristics located in the group of the Initial Series at Chichen Itza, has proved a challenge for archaeologists during long time. The importance of the building resides in its unique iconography, and especially in the presence of a hieroglyphic text with a calendar date in a painted capstone. The dating of this inscription has been crucial to explain the combination of architectural, iconographic, and ceramic traits and styles associated with it. In this contribution we will propose a new interpretation of the calendric date, which contradicts the dating of the capstone in the ninth century accepted by most scholars, placing the inscription instead in the twelfth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sculpture referred to as the 'Tenoned Disk', which was recovered from the Caracol building at Chichén Itzá, is a monument decorated with a bass-relief carving displaying historical figures and an accompanying hieroglyphic text located on the rim of the monument. This text makes reference to several persons named using a Maya Yucatec language. The date 8 Ajaw is also recorded on the sculpture. For some unknown reason this monument has been overlooked by scholars who have sought to reconstruct the chronology of the site. Crucially, this monument records an important moment in the history of Chichén Itzá and of Yucatán in general: the arrival of the "Mexican-Toltec" people, and the re-foundation of the city under a new social construct that included foreigners and local nobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]