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The Mayans wrote their numbers vertically, with each "digit" being
represented by either a set of dots and horizontal lines or else a
symbol that looks (to me) like an empty bowl, which denotes zero (an
impressive invention of the Mayans, considering how many millenia it
took the people of the other hemisphere to think of it). For the
non-zero digits, each horizontal dash represents 5, and each dot
represents 1, and these are simply added together to give the value
of the digit. Thus each non-zero digit consists of from 0 to 4 dots,
and from 0 to 3 lines, and these arrangements, along with the "empty
bowl", give representations for every number from 0 to 19.