The extant Maya hieroglyphic texts comprise a rather one-sided corpus of linguistic material which is not truly representative of the actual language of ancient Maya speakers. Nevertheless, it is the only available source of knowledge and as such it is of immense interest to linguists. A large portion of inscriptions are texts produced in the Classic Period (AD 250-900) as a medium of royal display of power and hierarchy, excellent examples of propaganda, thus it is reasonable to hypothesise that at least some metaphors used in these texts might have been used deliberately and in a novel way, at least initially when they were used for the first time. This project investigates if any of the non-literal expressions (plus accompanying iconography) found in monumental inscriptions can be potentially interpreted as cases of deliberate metaphor, including expressions such as uchokow chaaj ‘he sows/scatters incense’, kaaj usak ? ik’ ‘his white ? breath diminishes’, och bih ‘road-enter’, etc.