The Maya numeric system is constituted by only three symbols. The dot that represents a unity (1), the bar represents the number 5, and another symbol representing the zero.

As our decimal system has ten basic numbers or digits (0-9) from which we can form any number imaginable, the Mayas also have their own basic numbers (0-19), from which we can form also any number just by using a very simple positional system similar to our own. Below you will see how the three symbols are grouped together in different ways to represent the twenty base numbers.

The zero, a prodigious accomplishment of the universal culture for the progress of the mathematics, was discovered by the Mayas at least 600 years before than in India, and even then, the Hindus didn't give it the importance and use that the Mayas did. The principal function of the Maya zero is to allow the use of the positional system and to represent the absence of value, exactly like we use it in the decimal system.

The Mayas used many symbols to represent the zero, the most common are a shell, a head with a hand covering the mouth, a flower, and a small draft in the form of the Milky Way. It's important to say that the zero and its positional system were widely used for all sorts of operations, measures, and commerce exchanges.

The dot as said before is used to represent a unity, but you can't have more than four dots because after that you use a bar to represent a group of five, and start using the dots again until you also reach five so you use another bar and so on until you reach 19, after that you use the positional system, as we'll explain next, to represent any higher number. Below you can see the 20 Mayan base numbers.

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Introduction|The basic symbols|Positional system