Manuscripts

The painted books. Screenfold manuscripts on bark paper and deerskin, the ones that survived the burnings and the ones made after the conquest to explain the old world to the new. Azcatitlan, Mendoza, Boturini, Zouche-Nuttall, the Florentine Codex, and the lienzos that were painted to argue a land claim in a Spanish court.

Part of Mexico

125 moments in this segment.

1200 - The Dresden Codex, page 43. A section of the Maya astronomical book, showing part of its Venus table. The manuscript dates from around the twelfth or thirteenth century. It is the oldest surviving book written in the Americas and sits in Dresden.
1543 - The Mapa Quinatzin. Leaf two of the manuscript, with the ground plan of Nezahualcóyotl's palace at Texcoco. Painted in the sixteenth century, this copy dated 1543. The plan names the rooms of a court that had already been dismantled.
1750 - Codex Mendoza, engraved. An eighteenth-century print reproducing folio 2 recto of the codex. Held in the Rijksmuseum print room. The Mendoza was made around 1541 for Charles the Fifth, was taken by French pirates, and ended in Oxford.
1889 - Reading the Codex en Cruz. Instructions for following the cross-shaped reading order of the codex, drawn by Eugène Goupil. Published 1889. Goupil's collection of Mexican manuscripts went to the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris.
1902 - Lords in canoes, Codex Zouche-Nuttall. Three lords paddle out to take a city on an island, drawn in the screenfold's register bands. Page 75 of the Codex Zouche-Nuttall, in a 1902 facsimile. The manuscript is Mixtec, painted on deerskin before the conquest, and it reads in a boustrophedon path guided by red lines.
1904 - Bowditch on the Maya calendar, 1904. A plate from Charles Bowditch's study of Mexican and Central American calendar systems. Published 1904. Bowditch funded much of the early Maya work at Harvard and worked on the numeral system himself.
1904 - Bureau of American Ethnology bulletin, 1904. A plate from the Smithsonian's ethnology series on Mesoamerican material. Washington, 1904. American institutions published much of the early comparative work on the codices.
1904 - Another plate from the 1904 bulletin. A further illustration from the Bureau of American Ethnology's Mesoamerican volume. Washington, 1904. These plates put line drawings of the codices into circulation long before colour facsimiles.
1904 - A third plate from the 1904 bulletin. Another illustration from the Smithsonian ethnology series. Washington, 1904. Bureau of American Ethnology bulletins were the main channel for this material in English.
2008 - The Codex Zouche-Nuttall opened. Two folding pages of the Mixtec screenfold in the British Museum. Photographed 2008. It follows the life of the ruler Eight Deer Jaguar Claw across dozens of pages.
2008 - Two pages of the Zouche-Nuttall. A closer view of the same Mixtec manuscript. British Museum, 2008. Screenfold books were painted on both sides and opened out to several metres.
2010-10-26 - ¿Qué son los Códices?. INAH TV explains what the codices are. They were painted on amate, the bark paper of the fig tree, or on stitched deerskin, in screenfolds, strips, rolls and cloths.
2010-10-29 - ¿Cómo se hacían los Códices?. INAH TV explains how the codices were made. The tlacuilo was the painter-scribe who produced them.
2010-12-05 - El Códice Colombino. INAH TV presents the Codex Colombino. It is a Mixtec manuscript on deerskin recording the deeds of a lord.
2010-12-05 - ¿Cómo se conservan los Códices hoy?. INAH TV explains how the codices are conserved today. Only three uncontested pre-Hispanic Maya screenfold books survive anywhere.
2010-12-05 - ¿Cómo se leen los Códices?. INAH TV explains how the codices are read. The pictorial system carries meaning through image, place sign and numeral rather than through an alphabet.
2011 - A protected stela at Cobá. A carved upright kept under a shelter at the site. Cobá, Quintana Roo, 2011. Cobá's stelae are limestone and dissolve fast once exposed.
2011 - A copy of the Cobá stela. A replica standing at the site in place of the original. Cobá, Quintana Roo, 2011. Replacing originals with copies is the standard way of keeping an exposed carving legible.
2011 - A fallen stela at Yaxchilán. An unlabelled carved stone lying face down in the Grand Plaza. Yaxchilán, Chiapas, 2011. Many monuments at the site are still uncatalogued and lie where they fell.
2011 - The middle of the fallen stela. The central section of the same prone monument. Yaxchilán, Chiapas, 2011. Stelae usually broke into sections when they toppled.
2011 - A stela fragment in the plaza. A broken piece of carved stone in the Grand Plaza. Yaxchilán, Chiapas, 2011. The site is reached by boat up the Usumacinta and has no road.
2011 - A figure on the Temple of the Cross. What is left of a carved human figure on the temple. Palenque, Chiapas, 2011. Palenque's carvers worked in limestone soft enough to cut in fine detail, which is also why it erodes.
2011-07-14 - Entrevista sobre el Códice Colombino. An INAH TV interview about the Codex Colombino. The manuscript is held at the national anthropology library.
2012-03-08 - Restaura INAH códice Colonial sobre tributos. INAH TV reports the restoration of a colonial codex about tribute. Colonial tribute records are among the most numerous surviving manuscripts.
2012 - A Maya codex, copied. A facsimile of a Classic Maya book displayed open in the Maya gallery. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 2012. Only four Maya codices are agreed to survive; the friars burned the rest.
2012 - The codex facsimile in the gallery. Another view of the Maya book reproduction on display. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 2012. Diego de Landa burned the Maní library in 1562 and then wrote the account that later helped decipher the script.
2012 - Classic Maya stela with glyphs. A carved upright covered in glyph blocks. Maya gallery, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 2012. Maya writing is logosyllabic, mixing whole-word signs with syllables, and was only read fully in the late twentieth century.
2012 - Jaguar about to eat a heart. A carved jaguar with a human heart, from Chichén Itzá, dated between 1000 and 1250. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 2012. The image belongs to the militarised period of the northern lowlands.
2012 - The Hochob temple, full size. A replica of the Chenes-style Maya temple front from Hochob, built to scale in the museum. Mexico City, 2012. The Chenes style frames the doorway as a monster's open mouth.
2012 - A Maya building reproduced. A reconstruction of a Maya temple facade in the gallery. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 2012. The replicas let visitors see the roof combs and friezes that are hard to reach in the field.
2012 - Maya stucco frieze. Modelled plaster relief lifted from a Maya building. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 2012. Stucco was worked wet and painted, and the pigment survives on very little of it.
2012 - The Temple of the Cross panel. A photograph of the carved tablet from Palenque shown in the gallery. Mexico City, 2012. The panel gives the mythical and dynastic history that Kan Bahlam used to justify his rule.
2012 - A head-variant glyph from Palenque. A stucco glyph in which the number is written as a god's head rather than as bars and dots. From the Forgotten Temple, Palenque, shown in Mexico City, 2012. Head variants are the calligraphic form of Maya numerals.
2012 - Aztec writing. A carved text from the Mexica world. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 2012. Mexica writing was pictorial and rebus-based rather than a full script, and it recorded names, dates and tribute.
2012 - An early colonial book on the Aztecs. A printed volume describing Mexica life, made in the decades after the conquest. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 2012. Nearly everything known about Mexica religion comes through friars writing it down.
2012 - The Temple of Sacred War stone. A carved commemorative monument 1.23 metres high, dated to the Late Postclassic between 1250 and 1521. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 2012. It is also called the Teocalli of Sacred War and carries the date of the city's founding.
2012 - Chilam Balam carved in stone. A stone engraved with phrases from the Chilam Balam books. Cholul, Mérida, Yucatán, 2012. The Chilam Balam are Maya books written in the Latin alphabet after the conquest, each town keeping its own.
2012 - Amate paper with designs. Painted bark paper at the gallery and museum in San Pablito. Pahuatlán, Puebla, 2012. San Pablito Otomí makers kept amate alive when it had all but disappeared elsewhere.
2012 - The amate shop at San Pablito. A store selling bark paper and beadwork in the village. Pahuatlán, Puebla, 2012. Amate is made by boiling bark in lime and beating the fibres flat on a board.
2012-10-30 - Manuscritos en lenguas indígenas. Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia. INAH TV covers manuscripts in indigenous languages at the national anthropology library. Colonial documents in Nahuatl and Mixtec survive in quantity.
2013 - A royal woman on a limestone panel. A carved panel from the Usumacinta region holding a still figure and a lively serpent-legged god. Classic Period, between 250 and 900. The contrast between her stillness and the creature's movement is the panel's whole design.
2013 - A stucco glyph cartouche. A Maya glyph block modelled in stucco with paint still on it, showing the numerals 16 and 12. Late Classic, 600 to 900, from the Temple of the Inscriptions. Held at the Museo de América in Madrid, photographed 2013.
2013-11-29 - Cómo interpretar los códices botánicos. The UNAM botanical garden explains how to interpret botanical codices. The Codex de la Cruz-Badiano is a sixteenth century herbal in Nahuatl.
2014-01-17 - Antropológicas - Apuntes, Códice Techialoyan de Cuajimalpa (Cápsula Prog. 20). Canal Once's Antropológicas covers the Techialoyan codex of Cuajimalpa. Techialoyan manuscripts were made in the seventeenth century to defend community land titles.
2014-04-14 - Antropológicas - Códice Boturini (Cápsula Prog. 29). Canal Once's Antropológicas covers the Codex Boturini. It is painted in black outline on amate without colour.
2014-05-15 - ENCRYM Conferencia: "La Restauración de las Tablas de Coixtlahuaca y Yanhuitlán". A conservation school conference on the restoration of painted tablets. Painted wooden panels present similar problems to codices.
2014 - A glyph fragment on tour. Part of a Late Classic stela lent to Beijing by the Mexican national museum. Photographed 2014. Late Classic covers roughly 600 to 900, the period of the greatest Maya inscriptions.
2014 - The captives' platform. A carved stone from Dzilam González showing the power of Maya rulers over captives. Gran Museo del Mundo Maya, Mérida, Yucatán, 2014. Naming and displaying captives was a standard element of royal inscriptions.
2014-07-22 - Mesa: Revisión histórica de la teoría de la restauración III. An INAH roundtable reviewing the history of restoration theory. Mexican conservation practice has its own institutional tradition.
2014-09-03 - Curso MNA: Avances recientes en el estudio de los códices mixtecos. The anthropology museum announces a course on recent advances in codex studies. New readings continue to emerge from digitised manuscripts.
2014-10-14 - Códice Aubin. INAH TV presents the Codex Aubin. The manuscript combines pictorial annals with alphabetic Nahuatl text.
2014-12-16 - Códice Colombino. A short INAH TV piece on the Codex Colombino. Mixtec codices narrate dynastic history through named individuals and dates.
2015-01-09 - Códices de México, memorias y saberes.. INAH TV presents Códices de México, memorias y saberes. The project catalogued and digitised the national codex holdings.
2015-01-26 - Códices de México, memorias y saberes. En voz de sus visitantes.. INAH TV presents the same project in the voices of those involved. Digitisation made the manuscripts accessible outside the reading room.
2015-02-13 - MUNDO INAH 67, 13 febrero 2015. Micrositio Códices de México, memorias y saberes. INAH TV reports the launch of a codices of Mexico microsite. Online publication is how most people now encounter the manuscripts.
2015-02-19 - Códice Mixteco Post-Cortesiano No. 36. INAH TV presents a post-Cortesian Mixtec codex. Manuscript production continued well after the conquest in altered form.
2015-03-11 - Matrícula de Tributos. INAH TV presents the Matrícula de Tributos. The manuscript lists the tribute owed to Tenochtitlan by subject provinces.
2015-04-30 - La Colección de Códices de la Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia. INAH TV presents the codex collection of the national anthropology library. The library holds the largest single collection of Mexican codices.
2015 - Lintel 26 from Yaxchilán. A carved limestone lintel showing a woman handing a warrior his jaguar headdress. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 2015. The lintels of Yaxchilán carry some of the most legible Maya narrative writing known.
2015 - Photographing the Maya gallery. Volunteers documenting the collection during a Wiki Takes day. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 2015. Free-licence photography is how these objects reach people who cannot travel to see them.
2015 - Amate and embroidery from Hidalgo. Bark paper and stitched cloth shown at the Feria de los Maestros del Arte. Chapala, Jalisco, 2015. Amate is the bark paper the pre-conquest codices were painted on, and it is still made in the Sierra Norte.
2015 - Stela 51 from Calakmul. The carved monument shown in the national museum. Mexico City, 2015. Stela 51 is among the best preserved of the Calakmul monuments and dates to 731.
2015-07-06 - Charla: Tratamientos de conservación-restauración. Parte 2. An INAH TV talk on conservation and restoration treatments. Intervention is kept minimal and reversible wherever possible.
2015-09-08 - Códice Boturini o Tira de la Peregrinación, edición digital. INAH TV presents the digital edition of the Codex Boturini. Digitisation allows the screenfold to be read continuously rather than page by page.
2016 - Sahagún's manual for Christians. A page from the Manual del christiano, bound into a Nahuatl gospel book in the cathedral library at Toledo. Photographed 2016. Bernardino de Sahagún spent sixty years in Mexico and wrote most of his work in Nahuatl.
2016 - The Codex Bodley. A pre-conquest Mexican manuscript in the Bodleian Library, photographed 2016. The Bodley is Mixtec and records the dynasties of Tilantongo and Teozacoalco.
2016 - The Selden Roll. A painted roll from pre-conquest Mexico held at Oxford. Photographed 2016. The Selden Roll tells an origin story of the Coixtlahuaca valley in Oaxaca.
2016 - The Codex Mendoza at Oxford. The post-conquest manuscript in the Bodleian collection. Photographed 2016. Its third section is a day-by-day account of an ordinary Mexica life from birth to old age.
2016 - The Codex Laud. A pre-conquest divinatory manuscript in the Bodleian Library. Photographed 2016. The Laud belongs to the Borgia group and deals with the 260-day count.
2017-03-15 - Mesa 5: Toma de decisiones: Diferentes propósitos. An INAH conservation roundtable on decision making for different purposes. Conservators weigh access against preservation on every object.
2017-04-03 - Introducción a la Iconografía Maya 1-2. An INAH conference introduces Maya iconography. Decipherment of Maya writing advanced substantially from the 1970s onward.
2017-05-05 - Mesa 01. Patrimonio Bibliográfico.. A UNAM libraries roundtable on bibliographic heritage. University collections hold colonial manuscripts alongside the national institutes.
2017-11-23 - Códice Boturini - Recorrido. INAH TV offers a walkthrough of the Codex Boturini. It is one of the three central Mexican manuscripts argued to be genuinely pre-conquest.
2018 - The Gran Museo del Mundo Maya. An exhibit in the Mérida museum of the Maya world. Yucatán, December 2018. The museum opened in 2012 and is built in the shape of a ceiba tree.
2018 - Stela 89 from Calakmul. A limestone stela of the Late Classic, dated to 731, shown in Cologne. Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, 2018. Calakmul raised more stelae than any other Maya city, and most are badly eroded.
2018 - Stela 89 in detail. A close view of the carving on the Calakmul stela of 731. Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, Cologne, 2018. Calakmul's soft limestone weathered badly, which is why so many of its texts are lost.
2018-09-21 - Itinerario - Biblioteca Nacional de México. Canal Once's Itinerario visits the Biblioteca Nacional de México. The national library holds colonial manuscripts and early printed books.
2018-09-23 - El Códice Maya de México, auténtico y el más antiguo - UNAM Global. UNAM reports the Maya Codex of Mexico being confirmed authentic and the oldest. It had been dismissed as a forgery for decades after surfacing in the 1960s.
2018-10-05 - Códice de Dresde - Presentación editorial. INAH TV presents an edition of the Dresden Codex. It is one of the three surviving pre-Hispanic Maya books and holds astronomical tables.
2019 - The Moctezuma petroglyph and its setting. The ground around a rock carving linked to Moctezuma the Younger. Photographed 2019. Carved rock, not paper, is where most surviving pre-conquest Mexican writing sits.
2019-07-04 - Dra. María Castañeda de la Paz "Códices del Encuentro". María Castañeda de la Paz lectures on codices of the encounter. Colonial codices were often produced as legal evidence.
2019-07-12 - Dra Ana Rita Valero de garcía Lascurain Códices del Encuentro. Ana Rita Valero de García Lascurain lectures on codices of the encounter at the anthropology library. Post-conquest manuscripts document the collision of two systems of record.
2020-07-12 - ARSFORUM. HISTORIAS DE EXPOSICIÓN. Códices: rescate y conservación del patrimonio.. A museum forum on the rescue and conservation of codices. Amate and deerskin both present distinct conservation problems.
2020-08-07 - HISTORIAS DE VERANO. MARAVILLAS PREHISPÁNICAS. Los tlacuilos y sus códices.. A museum programme on the tlacuiloque of the pre-Hispanic world. Scribes worked within schools attached to temples and palaces.
2020-09-03 - Leyendo el Códice de Dresde. The Museo Popol Vuh reads through the Dresden Codex. The manuscript records Venus cycles and eclipse predictions.
2020-11-18 - Presentación del libro "El Códice Mexicanus". A research institute presents a book on the Codex Mexicanus. The manuscript combines a European calendar with Mexica annals.
2021-05-20 - Patrimonio cultural en 3 bibliotecas de México: De los códices a la literatura mexicana universal.. A programme on cultural heritage across three Mexican libraries. Codices are held across several institutions rather than in one place.
2021 - A stela in Zurich. A carved Mesoamerican stone in a Swiss collection, its maker unrecorded. Museum Rietberg, photographed 2021. Stelae carried a ruler's portrait and the dates of their reign on the same face.
2021 - The Codex Borgia in facsimile. A copy of the Borgia, also called Yoalli Ehecatl, shown open in an exhibition. Museum Volkenkunde, Leiden, 2021. The Borgia is a pre-conquest ritual book whose place of origin is still argued over.
2021-07-23 - Conservación de Acervo Documental y Bibliotecario en medios húmedos, ascenso capilar; Piedra Pómez.. The national anthropology library covers conservation of documentary and library holdings. Climate control is the primary defence for organic materials.
2021-08-13 - Códice Tonindeye. The national conservation centre presents the Codex Tonindeye. The manuscript is also known as the Codex Nuttall.
2021-12-06 - El Virrey Antonio de Mendoza y los códices mexicanos. INAH TV covers the viceroy Antonio de Mendoza and the Mexican codices. The Codex Mendoza of about 1541 was made for him and is now at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
2022 - Carved stone in the Cancún Maya museum. A worked stone panel on display. Museo Maya de Cancún, Quintana Roo, 2022. The museum opened in 2012 after the previous one was condemned for hurricane damage.
2022 - The Temple of the Frescoes at Tulum. The multi-storey building with its painted interior at the walled coastal city. Tulum, Quintana Roo, 2022. Tulum was the only Maya city built on the coast and was still occupied when the Spanish arrived.
2022-09-30 - La influencia maya en el altiplano central durante el período Epiclásico.. The Museo Popol Vuh examines Maya influence on the central highlands. Manuscript traditions crossed between Maya and central Mexican regions.
2022-12-06 - Autentificando el Códice Maya de México (Español). The Getty Research Institute presents the authentication of the Maya Codex of Mexico. The manuscript was long doubted and was confirmed genuine after extensive analysis.
2023 - Cozcacuauhtli, the vulture day sign. A redrawn glyph of the sixteenth day sign, based on the Codex Borgia. Vector version made 2023. The 260-day count pairs twenty day signs with thirteen numbers.
2023 - Xócotl huetzi, the tenth month. A marker for the veintena running 25 August to 13 September, the ripening of the fruit. Estancia del Tiempo, Parque Matlazincas, Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. The cempohuallapohualli counted eighteen months of twenty days plus five left over.
2023 - Ochpaniztli, the sweeping of the temples. The marker for the month running 14 September to 3 October. Estancia del Tiempo, Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. Ochpaniztli was the harvest festival tied to the earth goddess Toci.
2023 - Teotleco, the arrival of the gods. The eleventh to twelfth veintena marker, 4 to 23 October. Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. The gods were said to return in this month, the young Tezcatlipoca arriving first.
2023 - Tepeílhuitl, the feast of the mountains. The marker for 24 October to 12 November. Estancia del Tiempo, Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. The mountain feast honoured the rain-bringing hills with figures made of amaranth dough.
2023 - Cuecholli, named for a lake bird. The marker for the month running 13 November to 2 December. Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. The name refers to a bird of the lagoon, and the month was tied to hunting.
2023 - Atemoztli, the falling of the water. The marker for 23 December to 11 January. Estancia del Tiempo, Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. The name announces the coming of the rains months before they arrive.
2023 - Títitl, the shrinking with cold. The marker for 12 to 31 January. Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. The month name registers the body drawing in against the cold of the highland winter.
2023 - Izcalli, the last month. The marker for 1 to 20 February, closing the count. Estancia del Tiempo, Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. The five nemontemi days that followed were considered unlucky and nothing was begun in them.
2023 - Atlacahualo, the first month. The marker for 26 February to 17 March, glossed as the want of water. Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. The year opened at the driest point, with rites asking for rain.
2023 - Tlacaxipehualiztli, the flaying of men. The marker for 18 March to 6 April. Estancia del Tiempo, Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. This was the month of Xipe Totec, whose priests wore flayed skins as an image of the seed splitting its husk.
2023 - Tozoztontli, the small vigil. The marker for 7 to 26 April. Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. The vigil months involved fasting and night watches before planting.
2023 - Huey tozoztli, the great vigil. The marker for 27 April to 16 May. Estancia del Tiempo, Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. Young maize plants were brought into the houses and blessed in this month.
2023 - Etzalcualiztli, the eating of maize and beans. The marker for 6 to 25 June, named for a stew of the two. Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. The month belonged to Tlaloc, at the point where the rains should have arrived.
2023 - Tecuilhuitontli, the small feast of the lords. The marker for 26 June to 15 July. Estancia del Tiempo, Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. In the lords' feasts the nobility fed the commoners rather than the other way round.
2023 - Huey tecuílhuitl, the great feast of the lords. The marker for 16 July to 4 August. Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. It fell in the hungriest weeks, before the new maize was ready.
2023 - Tlaxochimaco, the offering of flowers. The marker for 5 to 24 August. Estancia del Tiempo, Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. Flowers were gathered before dawn and hung in garlands through the temples.
2023 - Tóxcatl, the dry season. The marker for 17 May to 5 June. Toluca, State of Mexico, 2023. The Tóxcatl festival of 1520 was the one the Spanish attacked in the temple precinct, which set off the war in the city.
2024 - The Lienzo de Coixtlahuaca. The central panel of a sixteenth-century painted cloth from Oaxaca, also called the Codex Ixtlán. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 2024. A lienzo is a map and a history at once, showing territory and the lineages that held it.
2024 - Lintel 26 of Yaxchilán, dated 724. The carved lintel with its date, shown in the Maya hall. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 2024. Maya inscriptions carry Long Count dates that convert exactly to our calendar.
2024 - Lintel 58 of Yaxchilán. A carved lintel from between 600 and 800. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 2024. Yaxchilán sits on a bend of the Usumacinta and is still reached mainly by boat.
2024 - Marker for Bernardino de Sahagún. A historical plaque at the former monastery of Santiago Tlatelolco. Mexico City, 2024. Sahagún taught at the Colegio de Santa Cruz here and worked with Nahua students to compile the Florentine Codex.
2024 - Monument to Sahagún. A monument to the friar at the old Tlatelolco monastery. Mexico City, 2024. His informants were named Nahua elders, and the Florentine Codex carries their Nahuatl alongside his Spanish.
2024 - The Códice Totomixtlahuaca. A manuscript of about 1564 from Guerrero. Museo Soumaya, Mexico City, 2024. Colonial-era codices were often made as evidence in land disputes before Spanish courts.
2024-07-19 - Códice Nuttall - Ft. Boris. A reading of the Codex Nuttall. The screenfold records Mixtec genealogy across several generations.
2025-06-25 - Arqueología Mexicana_ Códices, escribir pintando. TV UNAM presents the same programme on codices as writing by painting. Scholars debate whether even three claimed pre-Hispanic Aztec codices are genuinely pre-conquest.
2025-07-26 - El Códice Boturini. La historia de una peregrinación. INAH TV presents the Codex Boturini and its migration story. The manuscript is also called the Tira de la Peregrinación and narrates the Mexica journey to the lake.
2025-11-21 - La Escritura Antigua y los Códices de México - Diálogos Abiertos. A UNAM dialogue on ancient writing and the codices of Mexico. Mesoamerican writing systems developed independently of the Old World.
2026-01-20 - Códices, escribir pintando | Arqueología Mexicana. INAH TV presents codices as writing by painting in its Mexican archaeology series. Roughly 500 colonial-era codices survive worldwide.