In the eighth century CE, Maya scribes in Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras innovated a new hieroglyphic writing technique at the sites of Palenque, Yaxchilán, Quiriguá, and Copán. Instead of the usual signs composed of abstract elements and the disembodied heads and body parts of supernaturals, animals, and humans, those used in these inscriptions took on entire bodies that reclined, gestured, and called out, all while functioning as linguistic signs. These glyphs, known as “full-figure” glyphs, record standard glyphic texts while incorporating higher visual content, and thus sit at the intersection of the visual and the linguistic. My dissertation interrogates the visual aspects of full-figure inscriptions, asking what they share with other aspects of Maya visual culture and how their visual readings complement their linguistic readings. Previous studies (primarily Gutiérrez González 2008 and Houston 2014, 2021) have studied these texts and examined the implications of personified elements of time, but none have examined the entire corpus for its visual qualities and their implications. My research builds on the Maya concept tz’ihb, a term which encompasses not only writing, but also painting and mark-making. For the Maya, the separation between the Western terms “art” and “writing” as we know it did not exist. This study represents the first attempt to examine full-figure glyphs from the indigenous epistemology of tz’ihb. Each chapter of this dissertation employs a different analytical methodology, examining the iconography, figuration, materiality, authorship, and experiential aspects of full-figure inscriptions. This analysis revealed that in many cases, scribes chose sign variants that continued a visual message meant to complement both the linguistic message and the larger context of the monument on which it appeared. The figuration of these signs continued that visual message, illustrating interactions and relationships between types of signs or iconographic categories. Patterns in iconographic use and figural representation allowed for the identification of instances in which scribes might have worked at multiple sites. These findings reify the importance of allowing indigenous epistemologies to guide the study of ancient material culture and emphasize that full-figure inscriptions function as tz’ihb: as text, image, and the intersection of the two.