Heaven and Earth in Ancient Mexico

Heaven and Earth in Ancient Mexico
Author: Susan Milbrath
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013-02-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780292743731

The Codex Borgia, a masterpiece that predates the Spanish conquest of central Mexico, records almanacs used in divination and astronomy. Within its beautifully painted screenfold pages is a section (pages 29-46) that shows a sequence of enigmatic pictures that have been the subject of debate for more than a century. Bringing insights from ethnohistory, anthropology, art history, and archaeoastronomy to bear on this passage, Susan Milbrath presents a convincing new interpretation of Borgia 29-46 as a narrative of noteworthy astronomical events that occurred over the course of the year AD 1495-1496, set in the context of the central Mexican festival calendar. In contrast to scholars who have interpreted Borgia 29-46 as a mythic history of the heavens and the earth, Milbrath demonstrates that the narrative documents ancient Mesoamericans' understanding of real-time astronomy and natural history. Interpreting the screenfold's complex symbols in light of known astronomical events, she finds that Borgia 29-46 records such phenomena as a total solar eclipse in August 1496, a November meteor shower, a comet first sighted in February 1496, and the changing phases of Venus and Mercury. She also shows how the narrative is organized according to the eighteen-month festival calendar and how seasonal cycles in nature are represented in its imagery. This new understanding of the content and purpose of the Codex Borgia reveals this long-misunderstood narrative as the most important historical record of central Mexican astronomy on the eve of the Spanish conquest.

Tlacuilolli

Tlacuilolli
Author: Karl Anton Nowotny
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780806136530

Appearing for the first time in English, Karl Anton Nowotny’s Tlacuilolli is a classic work of Mesoamerican scholarship. A concise analysis of the pre-Columbian Borgia Group of manuscripts, it is the only synthetic interpretation of divinatory and ritual codices from Mexico. Originally published in German and unavailable to any but the most determined scholars, Tlacuilolli has nevertheless formed the foundation for subsequent scholarly works on the codices. Its importance extends beyond the study of Mexican codices: Nowotny’s sophisticated reading of these manuscripts informs our understanding of Mesoamerican culture. Of particular importance are Nowotny’s corrections of errors in fact and interpretation in the Spanish edition of Eduard Seler’s commentary on the Borgia Group. George A. Everett and Edward B. Sisson have translated Nowotny’s masterwork into English while maintaining the flavor of the original German edition. To the core text they have added an extensive bibliography and constructed a framework of annotation that relates the principles in Tlacuilolli to current research. This edition includes a selection of eleven stunning full-color images chosen from the original catalog.

Re-Creating Primordial Time

Re-Creating Primordial Time
Author: Gabrielle Vail
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 534
Release: 2013-06-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 145718429X

Re-Creating Primordial Time offers a new perspective on the Maya codices, documenting the extensive use of creation mythology and foundational rituals in the hieroglyphic texts and iconography of these important manuscripts. Focusing on both pre-Columbian codices and early colonial creation accounts, Vail and Hernández show that in spite of significant cultural change during the Postclassic and Colonial periods, the mythological traditions reveal significant continuity, beginning as far back as the Classic period. Remarkable similarities exist within the Maya tradition, even as new mythologies were introduced through contact with the Gulf Coast region and highland central Mexico. Vail and Hernández analyze the extant Maya codices within the context of later literary sources such as the Books of Chilam Balam, the Popol Vuh, and the Códice Chimalpopoca to present numerous examples highlighting the relationship among creation mythology, rituals, and lore. Compiling and comparing Maya creation mythology with that of the Borgia codices from highland central Mexico, Re-Creating Primordial Time is a significant contribution to the field of Mesoamerican studies and will be of interest to scholars of archaeology, linguistics, epigraphy, and comparative religions alike.

Animal Figures in the Maya Codices

Animal Figures in the Maya Codices
Author: Alfred M. Tozzer
Publisher: Good Press
Total Pages: 100
Release: 2023-08-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

In 'Animal Figures in the Maya Codices,' readers are afforded a meticulous exploration into the rich tapestry of Mesoamerican literary tradition, with a keen focus on the depiction and symbolism of animals within Maya literature. The collection stands as a paramount anthology that delves into the diverse literary styles and themes prevalent in Pre-Columbian texts, highlighting the profound relationship between the Maya civilization and their natural environment. This anthology is marked by its comprehensive coverage and the significant intricacies of animal symbolism in Maya culture, drawing on the expansive knowledge and interpretative skills of its editors to illuminate this aspect of Maya literature. The editors, Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen, bring to the collection a wealth of expertise in anthropology and zoology respectively, harmonizing their interdisciplinary approaches to decode the complex symbolism embedded in the codices. Their backgrounds are instrumental in shedding light on the intertwined nature of cultural and biological narratives within Maya society, situating the anthology at the confluence of historical, cultural, and literary movements. This collaboration enriches the anthology, broadening our comprehension of ancient Maya thought and the role of animals in their cosmology. This anthology is an exemplary resource for both enthusiasts and scholars of Mesoamerican studies, offering a singular opportunity to immerse in the multifaceted narrative of Maya literary and cultural traditions. Readers are invited to traverse the symbolic and literal landscapes portrayed in the codices, gaining unique insights into the environmental and spiritual ethos of the ancient Maya. 'Animal Figures in the Maya Codices' does not only serve as a testament to the sophisticated symbology of an ancient civilization but also as a bridge connecting the past with contemporary inquiries into the human-animal relationship and the wider natural world.

Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate

Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate
Author: Elizabeth Hill Boone
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 527
Release: 2013-05-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 0292756569

In communities throughout precontact Mesoamerica, calendar priests and diviners relied on pictographic almanacs to predict the fate of newborns, to guide people in choosing marriage partners and auspicious wedding dates, to know when to plant and harvest crops, and to be successful in many of life's activities. As the Spanish colonized Mesoamerica in the sixteenth century, they made a determined effort to destroy these books, in which the Aztec and neighboring peoples recorded their understanding of the invisible world of the sacred calendar and the cosmic forces and supernaturals that adhered to time. Today, only a few of these divinatory codices survive. Visually complex, esoteric, and strikingly beautiful, painted books such as the famous Codex Borgia and Codex Borbonicus still serve as portals into the ancient Mexican calendrical systems and the cycles of time and meaning they encode. In this comprehensive study, Elizabeth Hill Boone analyzes the entire extant corpus of Mexican divinatory codices and offers a masterful explanation of the genre as a whole. She introduces the sacred, divinatory calendar and the calendar priests and diviners who owned and used the books. Boone then explains the graphic vocabulary of the calendar and its prophetic forces and describes the organizing principles that structure the codices. She shows how they form almanacs that either offer general purpose guidance or focus topically on specific aspects of life, such as birth, marriage, agriculture and rain, travel, and the forces of the planet Venus. Boone also tackles two major areas of controversy—the great narrative passage in the Codex Borgia, which she freshly interprets as a cosmic narrative of creation, and the disputed origins of the codices, which, she argues, grew out of a single religious and divinatory system.

The Madrid Codex

The Madrid Codex
Author: Gabrielle Vail
Publisher:
Total Pages: 472
Release: 2009-03-31
Genre: History
ISBN:

This volume offers new calendrical models and methodologies for reading, dating, and interpreting the general significance of the Madrid Codex. The longest of the surviving Maya codices, this manuscript includes texts and images painted by scribes conversant in Maya hieroglyphic writing, a written means of communication practiced by Maya elites from the second to the fifteenth centuries A.D. Some scholars have recently argued that the Madrid Codex originated in the Petén region of Guatemala and postdates European contact. The contributors to this volume challenge that view by demonstrating convincingly that it originated in northern Yucatán and was painted in the Pre-Columbian era. In addition, several contributors reveal provocative connections among the Madrid and Borgia group of codices from Central Mexico. Contributors include: Harvey M. Bricker, Victoria R. Bricker, John F. Chuchiak IV, Christine L. Hernández, Bryan R. Just, Merideth Paxton, and John Pohl. Additional support for this publication was generously provided by the Eugene M. Kayden Fund at the University of Colorado.

Time and the Ancestors

Time and the Ancestors
Author: Maarten Jansen
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 645
Release: 2017-03-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004340521

Time and the Ancestors: Aztec and Mixtec Ritual Art combines iconographical analysis with archaeological, historical and ethnographic studies and offers new interpretations of enigmatic masterpieces from ancient Mexico, focusing specifically on the symbols and values of the religious heritage of indigenous peoples.

The Book

The Book
Author: Michael F. Suarez
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 769
Release: 2013-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 019967941X

"This volume seeks to delineate the history of the production, dissemination, and reception of texts from the earliest pictograms of the mid-4th millennium to recent developments in electronic books."--Page xi.

Unraveling the Voynich Codex

Unraveling the Voynich Codex
Author: Jules Janick
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 419
Release: 2018-08-16
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319772945

Unraveling the Voynich Codex reviews the historical, botanical, zoological, and iconographic evidence related to the Voynich Codex, one of the most enigmatic historic texts of all time. The bizarre Voynich Codex has often been referred to as the most mysterious book in the world. Discovered in an Italian Catholic college in 1912 by a Polish book dealer Wilfrid Voynich, it was eventually bequeathed to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University. It contains symbolic language that has defied translation by eminent cryptologists. The codex is encyclopedic in scope and contains sections known as herbal, pharmaceutical, balenological (nude nymphs bathing in pools), astrological, cosmological and a final section of text that may be prescriptions but could be poetry or incantations. Because the vellum has been carbon dated to the early 15th century and the manuscript was known to be in the collection of Emperor Rudolf II of the Holy Roman Empire sometime between 1607 and 1622, current dogma had assumed it a European manuscript of the 15th century. However, based on identification of New World plants, animals, a mineral, as well as cities and volcanos of Central Mexico, the authors of this book reveal that the codex is clearly a document of colonial New Spain. Furthermore, the illustrator and author are identified as native to Mesoamerica based on a name and ligated initials in the first botanical illustration. This breakthrough in Voynich studies indicates that the failure to decipher the manuscript has been the result of a basic misinterpretation of its origin in time and place. Tentative assignment of the Voynichese symbols also provides a key to decipherment based on Mesoamerican languages. A document from this time, free from filter or censor from either Spanish or Inquisitorial authorities has major importance in our understanding of life in 16th century Mexico. Publisher's Note: For the eBook editions, Voynichese symbols are only rendered properly in the PDF format.