The Dresden Codex is a Maya book, which was believed to be the oldest surviving book written in the Americas, dating to the 11th or 12th century. However, in September 2018 it was proven that the Maya Codex of Mexico, previously known as the Grolier Codex, is, in fact, older by about a century. The codex was rediscovered in the city of Dresden, Germany, hence the book's present name. It is located in the museum of the Saxon State Library. The codex contains information relating to astronomical and astrological tables, religious references, seasons of the earth, and illness and medicine. It also includes information about conjunctions of planets and moons.
Zelia Maria Magdalena Nuttall was an American archaeologist and anthropologist specialised in pre-Aztec Mexican cultures and pre-Columbian manuscripts. She discovered two forgotten manuscripts of this type in private collections, one of them being the Codex Zouche-Nuttall. She was one of the first to identify and recognise artefacts dating back to the pre-Aztec period.
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.
Aztec codices are Mesoamerican manuscripts made by the pre-Columbian Aztec, and their Nahuatl-speaking descendants during the colonial period in Mexico.
The Codex Magliabechiano is a pictorial Aztec codex created during the mid-16th century, in the early Spanish colonial period. It is representative of a set of codices known collectively as the Magliabechiano Group. The Codex Magliabechiano is based on an earlier unknown codex, which is assumed to have been the prototype for the Magliabechiano Group. It is named after Antonio Magliabechi, a 17th-century Italian manuscript collector, and is held in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, Italy.
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 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.
The Codex Fejérváry-Mayer is an Aztec Codex of central Mexico. It is one of the rare Native American manuscripts that have survived the Spanish conquest of Mexico. As a typical calendar codex tonalamatl dealing with the sacred Aztec calendar – the tonalpohualli – it is placed in the Borgia Group. It is a divinatory almanac in 17 sections. Its elaboration is typically pre-Columbian: it is made on deerskin parchment folded accordion-style into 23 pages. It measures 16.2 centimetres by 17.2 centimetres and is 3.85 metres long.
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.
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.
The Mixtec Group is the designation given by scholars to a number of mostly pre-Columbian documents from the Mixtec people of the state of Oaxaca in the southern part of the Republic of Mexico. They are distinguished by their principally historical and geographical content.
The Codex Colombino is a part of a Mixtec codex held in the collection of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. It is one of only two Mesoamerican codices that remain in Mexican territory. It deals with the genealogy, marriages and bellicose conquests of the Mixtec lord Eight Deer Jaguar Claw.
The Codex Cospi is a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican pictorial manuscript, included in the Borgia Group. It is currently located in the library of the University of Bologna.
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.
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.
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.
Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I, also known as Codex Vindobonensis C, or Codex Mexicanus I is an accordion-folded pre-Columbian piece of Mixtec writing. It is a ritual-calendrical and genealogical document dated to the 14th century.
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 Verona Sacramentary or Leonine Sacramentary is the oldest surviving liturgical book of the Roman rite. It is not a sacramentary in the strict sense, but rather a private collection of libelli missarum containing only the prayers for certain Masses and not the scriptures, the canon or the antiphons. It is named after the sole surviving manuscript, Codex Veronensis LXXXV, which was found in the chapter library of the cathedral of Verona by Giuseppe Bianchini and published in his four-volume Anastasii bibliothecarii vitae Romanorum pontificum in 1735. It is sometimes called "Leonine" because it has been attributed to Pope Leo I, but while some of the prayers may be his compositions the entire work certainly is not.
The Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt (ADEVA) is an Austrian book publisher in Graz that specialises primarily in publishing lavish facsimile editions.
