~ lI iteracy, the ability to link language and script, forms one of the most important topics in twentieth-century linguistics (e.g., Ong 1982). On a practical level literacy relates to mat- ters of pedagogy and societal development (Cipolla 1969; Sanderson 1972;Street 1984), and on a theoretical level to the interaction of spo- ken and written language and the intensity of cognitive change (Chafe and Tannen 1987; Goody 1987: 263). Still undeveloped, however, is an understanding of literacy in the Pre-Columbian world, particularly among the Maya of Mesoamerica, where scribal arts reached an extraor- dinary degree of accomplishment and complexity. This essay explores the Maya evidence for literacy against a backdrop of comparative in- formation from other parts of Mesoamerica and the Old World. Its aim: to present a perspective on literacy that goes beyond the particulars of Maya culture, yet enriches the debate on ancient literacy and its conse- quences with evidence from a region that has been persistently neglected or misunderstood by writers on the subject (e.g., Goody 1987: 22, 23). Perspectives on Ancient Literacy The subject of ancient literacy presupposes several questions: Is there a universal definition of literacy, or should literacy be defined in highly variable and culturally determined ways? How does reading depart from writing-that is, to what extent does a text record a complete message, to be studied at leisure in a setting divorced from the oral recitation of that message? By their nature do certain writing systems, particularly those of a logosyllabic kind, inhibit the growth of widespread literacy and reflective mindsets? 1 And how many could read and write in the ancient world? What makes these questions difficult to answer is the nature of the available evidence. Unlike modern linguists, who have the benefit of living speakers to survey and interview, we cannot study ancient literacy by direct means. In archaeological terms, this stems from the problem of inadequate sampling. Often, the relative lack or abundance of inscrip- tions reveals little or nothing about literacy, about how many people could write, who could write, and to what degree. Other forms of writing simply failed to survive, so that negative evidence cannot be interpreted as a sign of limited literacy (Harvey 1966: 586, 590; Mann 1985: 206; Johnston 1983: 66). We can escape from this impasse by dealing with the few direct clues that survive and by examining indirect clues-expecta- tions derived from the study of comparable writing systems, from what Stephen Houston Literacy among the Pre-Columbian Maya: A Comparative Perspective