Project “Xoc” is an attempt to discover new keys to Maya hieroglyphics, using readily available source material. “Xoc” is the Maya word for “count”; the authors found that counting the progression of days in the Maya calendar forward and backward numerous times led to their first stage of discovery. The Maya use of hieroglyphics in the ceremonial and secular calendars was pointed out by Bishop Diego de Landa in his Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán, written during the 1560's. Landa's book was lost for three hundred years, but in the century since it was rediscovered, other scholars have expanded his findings to the point that the Maya calendar use of hieroglyphics is well understood.

The hieroglyphic text is another matter. Scholars are generally agreed that the codices deal with astronomy and agriculture and that any text, if and when deciphered, would deal with those fields only, rather than in the broad spectrum of Maya life.