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The Codex Selden (also known as the Codex Añute) is a Mexican manuscript of
Mixtec The Mixtecs (), or Mixtecos, are Indigenous Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico inhabiting the region known as La Mixteca of Oaxaca and Puebla as well as La Montaña Region and Costa Chica of Guerrero, Costa Chica Regions of the state of Guerre ...
origin. The codex is an account of the genealogy of the Jaltepec dynasty from the tenth to the 16th century. Codex Selden is possibly a fragment of a much longer improperly stored document. Although it was completed after the arrival of the
conquistador Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (; ; ) were Spanish Empire, Spanish and Portuguese Empire, Portuguese colonizers who explored, traded with and colonized parts of the Americas, Africa, Oceania and Asia during the Age of Discovery. Sailing ...
s in the Mixtec region, it is considered one of the six pre-Hispanic Mixtec codices that survived the
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was a pivotal event in the history of the Americas, marked by the collision of the Aztec Triple Alliance and the Spanish Empire. Taking place between 1519 and 1521, this event saw the Spanish conquistad ...
. The last date mentioned in the Codex is 1556, which can be interpreted as the date when the codex was finished. The Codex belonged to the English jurist
John Selden John Selden (16 December 1584 – 30 November 1654) was an English jurist, a scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law. He was known as a polymath; John Milton hailed Selden in 1644 as "the chief of learned m ...
, who died in 1654 and left his collection of books and manuscripts at the University of Oxford. It is kept at the
Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley, it is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second-largest library in ...
in Oxford (shelfmark MS. Arch. Selden. A. 2). In the 1950s, an accidental scratch revealed that the Selden Codex might overlay an earlier document later covered over with a layer of gypsum and chalk, a
palimpsest In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off in preparation for reuse in the form of another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid ski ...
. But given the fragility of the Codex, the faint tracings seen through the scratch could not be further revealed. Traditional x-ray techniques would not be effective since the tracings were organic in composition. In 2016, researchers reported that they had successfully unveiled the underlying pre-Columbian writing using a newer scanning technique. Early analysis of the writing suggests that the original writing includes a history of the Mixtec culture with hitherto unknown details. The Bodleian Library holds four other
Mesoamerican codices Mesoamerican codices are manuscripts that present traits of the Mesoamerican indigenous pictoric tradition, either in content, style, or in regards to their symbolic conventions. The unambiguous presence of Mesoamerican writing systems in some of ...
: Codex Bodley, Codex Laud,
Codex Mendoza The Codex Mendoza is an Aztec codices, Aztec codex, believed to have been created around the year 1541. It contains a history of both the Aztec rulers and their conquests as well as a description of the daily life of pre-conquest Aztec society. ...
, and the Selden Roll, recently renamed The Roll of the New Fire.High-tech imaging reveals precolonial Mexican manuscript hidden from view for 500 years
Eurekalert The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsi ...
18 August 2016


Further reading

*Caso, Alfonso. ''Interpretación del Códice Selden 3135''. Mexico City, 1964. *Jansen, Maarten E.R.G.N. "Codex Selden," in ''Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures'', David Carrasco, ed. New York: Oxford University Press 2001, pp. 132–133. *Smith, Mary Elizabeth. "Codex Selden: A Manuscript from the Valley of Nochixtlan," in ''The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations'', edited by Kent V. Flannery and Joyce Marcus, pp. 248–255. New York 1983.


References

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External links


Catalogue of Selden manuscripts

MS. Arch. Selden. A. 2
Partial facsimile available on Digital Bodleian
MS. Arch. Selden. A. 2
in the Catalogue of Medieval Manuscripts in Oxford Libraries Mixtec codices Bodleian Library collection