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Maya codices (: codex) are folding written by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Maya script on Amate. The folding books are the products of professional scribes working under the patronage of deities such as the Tonsured Maize God and the Howler Monkey Gods. The codices have been named for the cities where they eventually settled. The Dresden Codex is generally considered the most important of the few that survive.
The Maya made paper from the inner bark of a certain Ficus tree, Ficus cotinifolia. This sort of paper was generally known by the word huun in Mayan languages (the Aztec people far to the north used the word amatl for paper). The Maya developed their huun-paper around the 5th century. (2025). 9780486435442, Dover Publications. ISBN 9780486435442 Maya paper was more durable and a better writing surface than papyrus.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Retrieved 22 Mar 2017 Bishop de Landa hosted a mass book burning in the town of Maní in the Yucatán peninsula. De Landa wrote:We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction.
Such codices were the primary written records of Maya civilization, together with the many on stone and that survived. Their range of subject matter in all likelihood embraced more topics than those recorded in stone and buildings, and was more like what is found on painted ceramics (the so-called ceramic codex). Alonso de Zorita wrote that in 1540 he saw numerous such books in the highlands that "recorded their history for more than eight hundred years back, and that were interpreted for me by very ancient Indians".Zorita 1963, 271–272
Dominican order friar Bartolomé de las Casas lamented when he found out that such books were destroyed: "These books were seen by our clergy, and even I saw part of those that were burned by the monks, apparently because they thought they might harm the Indians in matters concerning religion, since at that time they were at the beginning of their conversion." The last codices destroyed were those of Nojpetén, Guatemala in 1697, the last city conquered in the Americas. Maya writing With their destruction, access to the history of the Maya and opportunity for insight into some key areas of Maya life was greatly diminished.
Three Mayan codices have been preserved:
A fourth codex, lacking hieroglyphs, is Maya-Toltec rather than Maya. It remained controversial until 2015, when extensive research finally authenticated it:
It is not clear who brought the Dresden Codex to Europe. It arrived sometime in the late 18thcentury, potentially from the first or second generation of Spanish conquistadores. Even though the last date entry in the book is from several centuries before its relocation, the book was likely used and added to until just before the conquerors took it.
About 65 per cent of the pages in the Dresden Codex contain richly illustrated astronomical tables. These tables focus on eclipses, equinoxes and solstices, the sidereal cycle of Mars, and the synodic cycles of Mars and Venus. These observations allowed the Mayans to plan the calendar year, agriculture, and religious ceremonies around the stars. In the text, Mars is represented by a long nosed deer, and Venus is represented by a star.
Pages 51–58 are eclipse tables. These tables accurately predicted solar eclipses for 33years in the 8thcentury, though the predictions of lunar eclipses were far less successful. Icons of serpents devouring the sun symbolize eclipses throughout the book. The glyphs show roughly 40 times in the text, making eclipses a major focus of the Dresden Codex.
The first 52 pages of the Dresden Codex are about divination. The Mayan astronomers would use the codex for day keeping, but also determining the cause of sickness and other misfortunes.
Though a wide variety of gods and goddesses appear in the Dresden Codex, the Moon Goddess is the only neutral figure. In the first 23 pages of the book, she is mentioned far more than any other god.
Between 1880 and 1900, Dresden librarian Ernst Förstemann succeeded in deciphering the Maya numerals and the Maya calendar and realized that the codex is an ephemeris.Ernst Förstemann, Commentary on the Maya Manuscript in the Royal Public Library of Dresden, Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University Vol. IV, No. 2, Cambridge Mass. 1902 Subsequent studies have decoded these astronomical almanacs, which include records of the cycles of the Sun and Moon, including eclipse tables, and all of the naked-eye planets.John Eric Sidney Thompson, A commentary on the Dresden Codex: A Maya Hieroglyphic Book, Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, 1972. The "Serpent Series", pp. 61–69, is an ephemeris of these phenomena that uses a base date of 1.18.1.8.0.16 in the prior era (5,482,096 days).Beyer, Hermann 1933 Emendations of the 'Serpent Numbers' of the Dresden Maya Codex. Anthropos (St. Gabriel Mödling bei Wien) 28: pp. 1–7. 1943 The Long Count Position of the Serpent Number Dates. Proc. 27th Int. Cong. Of Amer., Mexico, 1939 (Mexico) I: pp. 401–405.Grofe, Michael John 2007 The Serpent Series: Precession in the Maya Dresden Codex
The Madrid Codex is the longest of the surviving Maya codices. The content of the Madrid Codex mainly consists of almanacs and horoscopes that were used to help Maya priesthood in the performance of their ceremonies and divinatory rituals. The codex also contains astronomical tables, although fewer than the other two generally accepted surviving Maya codices. A close analysis of glyphic elements suggests that a number of scribes were involved in its production, perhaps as many as eight or nine, who produced consecutive sections of the manuscript; the scribes were likely to have been members of the priesthood.Ciudad et al. 1999, pp. 877, 879.
Some scholars, such as Michael Coe and Justin Kerr,Miller 1999, p. 187. have suggested that the Madrid Codex dates to after the Spanish conquest but the evidence overwhelmingly favours a pre-conquest date for the document. It is likely that the codex was produced in Yucatán. J. Eric Thompson was of the opinion that the Madrid Codex came from western Yucatán and dated to between 1250 and 1450 AD. Other scholars have expressed a differing opinion, noting that the codex is similar in style to murals found at Chichen Itza, Mayapan and sites on the east coast such as Santa Rita, Tancah and Tulum.Sharer and Traxler 2006, p. 129. Two paper fragments incorporated into the front and last pages of the codex contain Spanish writing, which led Thompson to suggest that a Spanish priest acquired the document at Tayasal in Petén.Coe 1999, p. 200. Ciudad et al. 1999, p. 880.
Although occasionally referred to over the next quarter-century, its permanent rediscovery is attributed to the French orientalist Léon de Rosny, who in 1859 recovered the codex from a basket of old papers sequestered in a chimney corner at the Bibliothèque Nationale where it had lain discarded and apparently forgotten.Coe (1992, p. 101), Sharer & Traxler (2006, p. 127) As a result, it is in very poor condition. It was found wrapped in a paper with the word Pérez written on it, possibly a reference to the Jose Pérez who had published two brief descriptions of the then-anonymous codex in 1859.Stuart (1992, p. 20) De Rosny initially gave it the name Codex Peresianus ("Codex Pérez") after its identifying wrapper, but in due course the codex would be more generally known as the Paris Codex. De Rosny published a facsimile edition of the codex in 1864.Coe (1992, p. 101) It remains in the possession of the Bibliothèque Nationale.
Códice Maya de México: Understanding the Oldest Surviving Book of the Americas was published to accompany an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum October 18, 2022, to January 15, 2023. Turner, Andrew D. ed., with contributions by Gerardo Gutiérrez Mendoza, Baltazar Brito Guadarrama, and Jesús Guillermo Kantún Rivera. Códice Maya de México: Understanding the Oldest Surviving Book of the Americas. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute and J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Yuri Knorozov, a Soviet linguist, epigrapher and ethnographer played a pivotal role in the decipherment of the Maya script. He was also awarded the Order of the Quetzal by the President of Guatemala in 1991 and the USSR State Prize in 1977.
In May 1945, Knorozov, as a soldier in the Red Army, saved a book from the burning Prussian State Library (now the Berlin State Library). This book contained reproductions of the Dresden, Madrid, and Paris codies. This story is recounted in an award winning film, Breaking the Mayan Code.
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