Maya codices
The Dresden codex is written on a long sheet of paper that is’screen-folded’ to make a book of 39 leaves, written on both sides. It was probably written between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Somehow it made its way to Europe and was bought by the royal library of the court of Saxony in Dresden in 1739. About 65% of the pages in the Dresden Codex contain rich astronomical tables.
About Maya codices in brief
Maya codices are folding books written by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican bark paper. The paper was made from the inner bark of certain trees, the main being the wild fig tree or amate. Most of the codices were destroyed by conquistadors and Catholic priests in the 16th century. The Dresden codex is generally considered the most important of the few that survive. It is written on a long sheet of paper that is’screen-folded’ to make a book of 39 leaves, written on both sides. It was probably written between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Somehow it made its way to Europe and was bought by the royal library of the court of Saxony in Dresden in 1739. About 65 per cent of the pages in the Dresden Codex contain rich astronomical tables. These focus on eclipses, equinoxes and solstoxes. The last codices destroyed were those of Nojpetén, Guatemala in 1697, the last city conquered in the Americas. With their destruction, access to the history of the Maya and opportunity for insight into some key areas of Maya life was greatly diminished. Of the thousands of books in which the full extent of their learning and ritual was recorded, only four have survived to modern times.
There were many books in existence at the time of the Spanish conquest of Yucatán in the16th century; most were destroyed. The only exact replica, including the huun, made by a German artist is displayed at the Museo Nacional de Aría City, since October 2007. It arrived in Europe sometime in the late 18th century, potentially from the first or second generation of Spanish conquistores. Even though the book is from several centuries before its relocation, it is likely to have been added to the book before the conquerors took it before the last date of its entry into the Spanish library. It’s not clear how the book ended up up in Europe, though it is thought to have arrived in the last few centuries before the Spanish conqueror took it. The Codex is held in the Sächsische Landesbibliothek, the state library in Dresden, Germany, and is also a highly important specimen of Maya art. There are only three codices whose authenticity is beyond doubt. These are: However, a fourth codex that remained controversial until 2015 has been authenticated. It contains the richly illustrated astronomical tables, the synodic cycles of Mars and Venus, and religious ceremonies around the stars, and just the stars around the Mayans.
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This page is based on the article Maya codices published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 25, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
