Most important PREHISPANIC codices

Pre-Hispanic codices are all those texts written by the population of the Mesoamerican area before the arrival of the Europeans to the region. After the conquest of Mexico and with the destruction of a large amount of information by the Europeans in the Today these codices are one of the few reliable sources we have on the life of the population Mesoamerican. To mention the most outstanding codices, in this lesson from a PROFESSOR we must talk about the most important prehispanic codices.

The mayan codices are all those texts written by the Mayans that have managed to survive to a greater or lesser extent to this day and that help us to know the Mayan culture. Considered the best sources to understand the Mayan civilization today, they are kept safely in some of the most important cities in the world.

When commenting on the Mayan codices we must bear in mind that its name is given by the city in the found or where they were discovered, so the vast majority have city names European. The most important Mayan codices are as follows:

• Dresden Codex: It is one of the most important pre-Hispanic codices. Considered the most complete Mayan codex, it consists of an extensive calendar of civilization thanks to which we can know the number system of the Mayans.
• Madrid Codex: Divided into two parts, it is considered the most extensive codex, although some of its pages are very deteriorated. The text is very broad but to summarize it we can say that it consists of numerous sources of information for the Mayan priests to do their work.
• Paris Codex: A codex of only 11 pages, of which only 8 are legible and of which we assume that it is used for the priests to do their work.
• Codex Grolier: Made up of eleven pages, it is in a very bad state, being able to get out of it only that it talks about Venus and how this planet works.

The aztec codices have a particularity compared to the Mayans and that is that they were written by priests after the European conquest and not previously written texts. As this lesson tries to talk about the prehispanic, we are only going to comment on the codices that were initiated before the conquest, although its completion took place after this.

In the search for information about the Aztecs we must therefore look at a few texts written during the conquest, since their The information is more detailed than those written later, therefore the Mexican codices that meet these standards are the following:

• Bourbon Codex: It is one of the most important pre-Hispanic codices of Mexica origin. It was written between the beginning of the conquest of Mexico and its end by Spanish priests imitating the Mexica system. The content of the codex consists of an Aztec calendar, the explanation of the Mesoamerican cycle and finally a summary of the rites and sacrifices that they had to perform at the end of the cycle Mesoamerican.
• Codex Boturini or Strip of the Pilgrimage: It is considered to be a faithful copy of a text that was really pre-Hispanic. The text talks about one of the key moments in Mexica history, being the movement carried out by the Aztecs from their origin in Aztlán to the founding of the city of Tenochtitlan in the Valley of Mexico.
• Tax Registration: It is thought that it could be a copy made to an original pre-Hispanic text. In its pages it seems that it lists all the tributes paid by the enormous number of cultures that paid money to the Aztecs for being part of their empire.

To finish this lesson on the most important pre-Hispanic codices we must talk about the Mixtec codices, being less known than the previous two but just as important to know information about the Mesoamericans.

The mixtec culture it was a mountain town that kept temporal space with the aztecs, being one of the few cultures that could survive the enormous influence of the Aztecs and being only conquered by the arrival of the Europeans.

Unlike the Mayans and Aztecs, the Mixtecs seem to have received a minor repression by the Spanish, being the reason for the survival of a large part of its population; on the other hand, this is one of the reasons why Mixtec texts are more numerous than in other Mesoamerican peoples.

The Mixtec codices of pre-Hispanic origin They are more numerous than the Mayans and Aztecs, and therefore it is very important to list them and briefly comment on the information we have received from them. The main Mixtec codices are the following:

• Codex Bodley: The text on the one hand consists of family life in the Tilantongo region, while the other part of the codex talks about the mythical origins of some gods.
• Colombino-Becker Codex: Being a set of two texts, the codex tells us about the mythical and legendary adventures of some rulers of the region, being especially relevant the part of the source that tells the story of Eight Deer
• Codex Nuttal: It tells the life, alliances and victories of Governor Ocho Venados.
• Codex Vindobonensis: Like other codices it narrates the life and adventures of Eight Deer.
• Codex Selden: It narrates the family life of numerous Mixtec families during all the centuries of their existence.