The Madrid Codex: New Approaches to Understanding an Ancient Maya Manuscript

Abstract

This volume offers new calendrical models and methodologies for reading, dating, and interpreting the general significance of the Madrid Codex. longest of the surviving Maya codices, The Madrid includes texts and images painted by scribes conversant in Maya hieroglyphic writing, a written means of communication practised by Maya elites from the second to the fifteenth centuries AD. Some scholars have recently argued that the Madrid Codex originated in the Peten region of Guatemala and post-dates European contact. contributors to this volume challenge that view by demonstrating convincingly that it originated in northern Yucatan 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.