Codex Nuttall
The Codex Nuttall (also Codex Zouche-Nuttall ) is one of the still preserved pre-Columbian illuminated manuscripts of the Mixtecs , probably from the 14th century.
description
The Codex is a 96-page, approx. 11-meter-long folding book ( Leporello ) made of deerskin, coated with a polished layer of plaster and painted on both sides with pictograms and ideograms on 86 pages with vegetable and mineral pigments . The sides are 25.5 cm wide and 19 cm high.
origin
The codex comes from the area of today's Oaxaca in Mexico . In 1519 Hernán Cortés sent two books by the Indians (“dos libros de los que tienen los yndios”) to King Charles V , one of which is believed to be one of the Nuttall Codex.
The codex was found again in 1854 in the monastery of San Marco in Florence . In 1917 the British Museum in London acquired the Codex (Add. Mss. 39671), which has been under the British Library since 1973 .
content
The Codex contains a dynastic historiography, with which one can trace rulers through centuries.
literature
- Zelia Nuttall : The Codex Nuttall - A Picture Manuscript from Ancient Mexico. Dover Publications Inc., New York 1975, ISBN 0-486-23168-2 .
