The Maya hieroglyphic script is the best understood of nearly a score of pre- Columbian Meso-American scripts. This paper explores the resources now available for encoding it in Unicode. The Meso-American family of scripts is described, to determine if Maya is a single and distinct script for encoding purposes. The major features of the Maya hieroglyphic script are outlined, along with progress in deciphering it. The possibility is raised that a Meso-American calendrics system can be defined which spans a number of scripts beyond Maya. The state of published corpora, in facsimile and in transcription, is summarized, together with the organization and evaluation of the of the huge and growing bibliography of studies of the script. The major catalogs of hieroglyphs are evaluated for completeness and usability, especially the Thompson system. Thompson transcription conventions are explained. Some of the special rendering problems presented by Mayan hieroglphics are noted, together with the (perhaps) unexpected utility of Unicode resources intended originally for work with Chinese. The current state of computerization of Mayan is reviewed, especially with regard to fonts. Finally, implications for the Unicode pipeline and roadmap are suggested and a key problem is identified: the necessity of developing a productive dialog with the Mayanist scholarly community.

[The paper presupposes no prior knowledge of the Mayan hieroglyphic script.]