| Codex Bodley | |
|---|---|
 The Bodley Codex on display at the Bodleian Library | |
| Material | Animal skin |
| Size | 28 cm high by 31 cm wide |
| Created | 14th-15th Centuries AD |
| Present location | Bodleian Library, Oxford |
| Registration | MS Mex. d. 1 |
The Codex Bodley is an important pictographic manuscript and example of Mixtec historiography. It was named after the colloquial name of the Bodleian Library, where it has been stored since the 17th century. [1]
While the exact date of its creation is difficult to establish, judging from its content and style, it was completed before the 1521 Spanish conquest of Mexico. The history of the Codex Bodley before becoming part of the Bodleian Library's collection at the beginning of the 17th century is not known. J. Eric Thompson, British archaeologist and Mayan expert, has suggested that the manuscript's previous owner was Bishop Heronymous Osorius of Faro, Portugal. The codex may have been looted by Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and given to his friend Thomas Bodley in the sixteenth century.
The Bodleian Library holds four other Mesoamerican codices: Codex Laud, Codex Mendoza, Codex Selden and the Selden Roll.
The codex is made of deerskin that is 6.7 metres or 22 feet long. The animal skin was folded accordion style to form the distinct pages. Each page was then covered with a white base paint coat and then divided with red bands that extend horizontally. The obverse has five bands while the reverse is only divided into four. The condition of the codex has faded over time with many of the pages missing parts of the pictography.
The manuscript can be read from right to left on two sides; the obverse and the reverse. The obverse consists of pages 1 through 20 while the reverse starts on page 40 and finishes on page 21. The obverse ends with a genealogy and names Lord Four Deer as the last lord of the Tilantongo dynasty. On the other hand, Page 21 of the reverse names Lord Eight Grass as being the last king of Tlaxiaco. Eight Grass's name-glyph is at bottom center, above the 9-Deer glyph (photo).
The Codex Bodley offers a relatively complete review of family relationships among the dynasties of the main cacicazgos (community kingdoms) in the Mixteca Alta region. This information is indispensable for anyone studying Mixtec kinship, policies around marital alliances, and peer polity interaction. [2] Academic interest in the codex has focused on the Tilantongo and Tiaxiaco dynasties depicted on both sides of the manuscript, who once lived in the modern day Mexican State of Oaxaca. In 1949, the archaeologist Alfonso Caso was able to determine the primary line of descent for the royal family of Tilantongo and how the family affected Teozacoalco after the creation sagas that are described in the story of War of Heaven and Eight Deer stories. The Tilantongo people had an isolated past but the story of Eight Deer story provides a direct connection to the highest ranked dynasty in Mixteca. The reverse of the Codex Bodley tells the story from a different angle. It starts off by describing Apoala as a creation place (in contrast to Achiutla in the obverse). It goes on to describe the royal house of the Red and White Bundle after the War of Heaven. This is the rival family to the Tilantongo. Four Wind's biography is then used to connect a remote past that the family of the Red and White Bundle had to the promising future of Tiaxiaco.
The Mixtecs, or Mixtecos, are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico inhabiting the region known as La Mixteca of Oaxaca and Puebla as well as La Montaña Region and Costa Chica Regions of the state of Guerrero. The Mixtec culture was the main Mixtec civilization, which lasted from around 1500 BC until being conquered by the Spanish in 1523.
Eight Deer Jaguar Claw, or 8 Deer for brevity, was a powerful Mixtec ruler in 11th-century Oaxaca referred to in the 15th-century deerskin manuscript Codex Zouche-Nuttall, and other Mixtec manuscripts. His surname is alternatively translated Tiger-Claw and Ocelot-Claw. John Pohl has dated his life spanning from 1063 until his assassination in 1115.
The Codex Zouche-Nuttall or Codex Tonindeye is an accordion-folded pre-Columbian document of Mixtec pictography, now in the collections of the British Museum. It is one of about 16 manuscripts from Mexico that are entirely pre-Columbian in origin. The codex derives its name from Zelia Nuttall, who first published it in 1902, and Baroness Zouche, its donor.
Aztec codices are Mesoamerican manuscripts made by the pre-Columbian Aztec, and their Nahuatl-speaking descendants during the colonial period in Mexico.
Codex Ríos is an Italian translation and augmentation of a Spanish colonial-era manuscript, Codex Telleriano-Remensis, that is partially attributed to Pedro de los Ríos, a Dominican friar working in Oaxaca and Puebla between 1547 and 1562. The codex itself was likely written and drawn in Italy after 1566.
The Codex Borbonicus is an Aztec codex written by Aztec priests shortly before or after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. It is named after the Palais Bourbon in France and kept at the Bibliothèque de l'Assemblée Nationale in Paris. The codex is an outstanding example of how Aztec manuscript painting is crucial for the understanding of Mexica calendric constructions, deities, and ritual actions.
The Codex Borgia, also known as Codex Borgianus, Manuscrit de Veletri and Codex Yohualli Ehecatl, is a pre-Columbian Middle American pictorial manuscript from Central Mexico featuring calendrical and ritual content, dating from the 16th century. It is named after the 18th century Italian cardinal, Stefano Borgia, who owned it before it was acquired by the Vatican Library after the cardinal's death in 1804.
Tilantongo was a Mixtec citystate in the Mixteca Alta region of the modern-day state of Oaxaca which is now visible as an archeological site and a modern town of Santiago Tilantongo. It is located at 17°15' N. Lat. and 97°17' W. Long. Its Mixtec name was Ñuu Tnoo-Huahi Andehui meaning Black Town-Temple of Heaven
Mesoamerica, along with Mesopotamia and China, is one of three known places in the world where writing is thought to have developed independently. Mesoamerican scripts deciphered to date are a combination of logographic and syllabic systems. They are often called hieroglyphs due to the iconic shapes of many of the glyphs, a pattern superficially similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs. Fifteen distinct writing systems have been identified in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, many from a single inscription. The limits of archaeological dating methods make it difficult to establish which was the earliest and hence the progenitor from which the others developed. The best documented and deciphered Mesoamerican writing system, and the most widely known, is the classic Maya script. Earlier scripts with poorer and varying levels of decipherment include the Olmec hieroglyphs, the Zapotec script, and the Isthmian script, all of which date back to the 1st millennium BC. An extensive Mesoamerican literature has been conserved, partly in indigenous scripts and partly in postconquest transcriptions in the Latin script.
The traditions of indigenous Mesoamerican literature extend back to the oldest-attested forms of early writing in the Mesoamerican region, which date from around the mid-1st millennium BCE. Many of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica are known to have been literate societies, who produced a number of Mesoamerican writing systems of varying degrees of complexity and completeness. Mesoamerican writing systems arose independently from other writing systems in the world, and their development represents one of the very few such origins in the history of writing.
Mixtec writing originated as a logographic writing system during the Post-Classic period in Mesoamerican history. Records of genealogy, historic events, and myths are found in the pre-Columbian Mixtec codices. The arrival of Europeans in 1520 AD caused changes in form, style, and the function of the Mixtec writings. Today these codices and other Mixtec writings are used as a source of ethnographic, linguistic, and historical information for scholars, and help to preserve the identity of the Mixtec people as migration and globalization introduce new cultural influences.
"Red and White Bundle" is the nickname given to a location that is mentioned in several of the Mesoamerican codices which provide historico-mythical accounts of events and genealogies of the pre-Columbian Mixtec civilization, which was centered on the Oaxacan region of central-southern Mexico. The original Mixtecan name of this location is unknown. Its reference by Mesoamerica scholars as 'Red and White Bundle' derives from the appearance of the toponymic glyph associated with it in the pictorial Mixtec codices, such as the Zouche-Nuttall, Bodley and Vindobonensis codices.
The Codex Laud, or Laudianus, is a sixteenth-century Mesoamerican codex named for William Laud, an English archbishop who was the former owner. It is from the Borgia Group, and is a pictorial manuscript consisting of 24 leaves from Central Mexico, dating from before the Spanish takeover. It is evidently incomplete.
In art history, a speech scroll is an illustrative device denoting speech, song, or other types of sound.
Yahui is a supernatural figure that takes on various mixtures of animal and human forms within the culture and belief systems of the Mixtec—indigenous Mixtecan-speaking people of La Mixteca in central-southeastern Mexico. It is an important and recurring motif in Mixtec iconography, thought and culture, especially during the pre-Columbian era. As a supernatural figure, the yahui appears in Postclassic Mixtec codices as an entity wearing a serpent or reptilian tail and headdress and the carapace of a turtle.
Codex Vaticanus B, also known as Codex Vaticanus 3773, Codice Vaticano Rituale, and Códice Fábrega, is a pre-Columbian Middle American pictorial manuscript, probably from the Puebla part of the Mixtec region, with a ritual and calendrical content. It is a member of the Borgia Group of manuscripts. It is currently housed at the Vatican Library.
Huamelulpan is an archaeological site of the Mixtec culture, located in the town of San Martín Huamelulpan at an elevation of 2,218 metres (7,277 ft), about 96 kilometres (60 mi) north-west of the city of Oaxaca, the capital of Oaxaca state.
The Codex Selden is a Mexican manuscript of Mixtec origin. The codex is an account of the genealogy of the Jaltepec dynasty from the tenth to the 16th century. Codex Selden is possibly a fragment of a much longer improperly stored document. Although it was completed after the arrival of the conquistadors in the Mixtec region, it is considered one of the six pre-Hispanic Mixtec codices that survived the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. The last date mentioned in the Codex is 1556, which can be interpreted as the date when the codex was finished.
The Selden Roll is a 16th-century Mexican manuscript painted roll from the Coixtlahuaca region, incorporating both Mixtec and Aztec elements, probably recording myths of the origin and migration of divine ancestors.
The Mixtec culture was a pre-hispanic archaeological culture, corresponding to the ancestors of the Mixtec people; they called themselves ñuu Savi, which means "people or nation of the rain". It had its first manifestations in the Mesoamerican Middle Preclassic period and ended with the Spanish conquest in the first decades of the 16th century. The historical territory of this people is the area known as La Mixteca, a mountainous region located between the current Mexican states of Puebla, Oaxaca, and Guerrero.
