The Madrid Codex (also known as the Tro-Cortesianus Codex or the Troano Codex)García Saíz et al. 2010, p. 54. is one of four surviving pre-Columbian Maya books dating to the Postclassic period of

Mesoamerican chronology Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian, prehispanic Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian (first human habitation until 3500 BCE); the Archaic (before 2600 BCE), the Preclassic or Formative (2500 BC ...

(''circa'' 900–1521 AD). The Madrid Codex was produced in western

Yucatán Yucatán, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Yucatán, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, constitute the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 106 separate municipalities, and its capital city is Mérida. ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, today is held by the

Museo de América Museo may refer to: * ''Museum'' (2018 film), Mexican drama heist film * Museo station, station on line 1 of the Naples Metro {{disambiguation ...

in Madrid and is considered to be the most important piece in its collection. However, the original is not on display due to its fragility; an accurate reproduction is displayed in its stead. At one point in time the codex was split into two pieces, given the names "Codex Troano" and "Codex Cortesianus". In the 1880s, Leon de Rosny, an

ethnologist Ethnology (from the , meaning 'nation') is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). Scien ...

, realised that the two pieces belonged together, and helped combine them into a single text. This text was subsequently brought to Madrid, and given the name "Madrid Codex", which remains its most common name today.

Physical characteristics

The Codex was made from a long strip of

amate Amate ( from ) is a type of bark paper that has been manufactured in Mexico since the precontact times. It was used primarily to create codices. Amate paper was extensively produced and used for both communication, records, and ritual during t ...

paper that was folded up accordion-style. This paper was then coated with a thin layer of fine

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

, which was used as the painting surface. The complete document consists of 56 sheets painted on both sides to produce a total of 112 pages. The Troano is the larger part, consisting of 70 pages comprising pages 22–56 and 78–112. It takes its name from Juan Tro y Ortolano. The remaining 42 pages were originally known as the Cortesianus Codex, and include pages 1–21 and 57–77.FAMSI. Each page measures roughly . On the 56th page there is a patch of paper that does not match the rest of the paper. The patch is believed to be of European paper, however further research has not been conducted as it could be harmful to the codex.

Content

The Madrid Codex is the longest of the surviving Maya codices. Its content mainly consists of almanacs and horoscopes based on the Mayapan calendar used to help Maya priests in the performance of their ceremonies and divinatory rituals. The codex also contains astronomical tables, although fewer than those in the other three surviving Maya codices. Some of the content is likely to have been copied from older Maya books.Sharer and Traxler 2006, p. 129. Included in the codex is a description of the New Year ceremony.Ciudad et al. 1999, p. 879. The codex is stylistically uniform, leading Coe and Kerr to suggest that it was the work of a single scribe. Closer analysis of glyphic elements suggests that a number of scribes were involved in its production, perhaps as many as eight or nine, who produced consecutive sections of the manuscript. The religious content of the codex makes it likely that the scribes themselves were members of the priesthood. The codex probably was passed down from priest to priest and each priest who received the book added a section in his own hand. The images in the Madrid Codex depict rituals such as human sacrifice and invoking rainfall, as well as everyday activities such as beekeeping, hunting, warfare, and weaving.Noguez et al. 2009, p. 20. Other images show deities smoking ''sikar (see tables 25, 26, and 34 of the Codex)'', similar to modern cigars made of tobacco leaves.

Origin

According to the codex content it was created in the northwestern part of Yucatán since the document presents the same year-bearers of the Mayapán calendar (''K'an'', ''Muluk'', ''Ix'' and ''Kawak'') and the same symbology used in the region as well as the same New Year rituals and cemonies that were recorded and described by Bishop

Diego de Landa Diego de Landa Calderón, O.F.M. (12 November 1524 – 29 April 1579) was a Spanish Franciscan bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán. He led a campaign against idolatry and human sacrifice.Timmer, 480 In doing so, he burne ...

in 1566 performed by the Maya of northwestern Yucatán. Some scholars, such as Michael Coe and Justin Kerr, have suggested that the Madrid Codex dates to after the

Spanish conquest The Spanish Empire, sometimes referred to as the Hispanic Monarchy or the Catholic Monarchy, was a colonial empire that existed between 1492 and 1976. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It ...

, but the evidence overwhelmingly favors a pre-conquest date for the document. The language used in the document is the hieroglyphic writing of

Yucatec Maya Yucatec Maya ( ; referred to by its speakers as or ) is a Mayan languages, Mayan language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula, including part of northern Belize. There is also a significant diasporic community of Yucatec Maya speakers in San Fra ...

which is part of the Yucatecan group of

Mayan languages The Mayan languages In linguistics, it is conventional to use ''Mayan'' when referring to the languages, or an aspect of a language. In other academic fields, ''Maya'' is the preferred usage, serving as both a singular and plural noun, and a ...

that includes

Yucatec Yucatec Maya ( ; referred to by its speakers as or ) is a Mayan language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula, including part of northern Belize. There is also a significant diasporic community of Yucatec Maya speakers in San Francisco, though m ...

, Itza, Lacandon, and Mopan; these languages are distributed across the

Yucatán Peninsula The Yucatán Peninsula ( , ; ) is a large peninsula in southeast Mexico and adjacent portions of Belize and Guatemala. The peninsula extends towards the northeast, separating the Gulf of Mexico to the north and west of the peninsula from the C ...

, including

Chiapas Chiapas, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas, is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises Municipalities of Chiapas, 124 municipalities and its capital and large ...

Belize Belize is a country on the north-eastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a maritime boundary with Honduras to the southeast. P ...

, and the

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

n department of Petén. J. Eric Thompson was of the opinion that the Madrid Codex came from western Yucatán and dated to between 1250 and 1450 AD. Scholars also suggest that the codex may have originated from the Petén region of Guatemala as a colonial writing. Other scholars have expressed a differing opinion, noting that the codex is similar in style to murals found at

Chichen Itza Chichén Itzá , , often with the emphasis reversed in English to ; from () "at the mouth of the well of the Itza people, Itza people" (often spelled ''Chichen Itza'' in English and traditional Yucatec Maya) was a large Pre-Columbian era, ...

Mayapan Mayapan (Màyapáan in Yucatec Maya language, Modern Maya; in Spanish language, Spanish Mayapán) is a Pre-Columbian Maya civilization, Maya site a couple of kilometers south of the town of Telchaquillo in Municipality of Tecoh, approximately ...

, and sites on the east coast such as Santa Rita, Tankah, and

Tulum Tulum (, ) is the site of a pre-Columbian Mayan walled city which served as a major port for Coba, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The ruins are situated on cliffs along the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula on the Caribbean Sea. T ...

. Two paper fragments incorporated into the front and last pages of the codex contain Spanish writing, which led Thompson to early suggest that a Spanish priest acquired the document at Tayasal in Petén meaning that the codex was not Pre-Columbian but instead it was a colonial writing, this theory has been debunked and discarded due to the fact that the pages were pasted years later after the creation of the codex and they don't have any actual proof or context related to the site but it led to other hypothesis since the content of the text could have been a Crusade Bull, this would indicate that the codex was most likely acquired by Spanish priests as part of the Maya codices confiscated in 1607 by the commissioner of the Holy Crusade in Yucatan, Pedro Sánchez de Aguilar, in Chancenote, eastern Yucatan, where in addition to clay figures, he also recorded that two codices were confiscated.

Discovery

The codex was discovered in Spain in the 1860s, and was divided into two parts of differing sizes that were found in different locations.Sharer and Traxler 2006, p. 127. The codex receives its alternate name of the Tro-Cortesianus Codex after the two parts that were separately discovered. Early

Mayanist A Mayanist () is a scholar specialising in research and study of the Mesoamerican pre-Columbian Maya civilisation. This discipline should not be confused with Mayanism, a collection of New Age beliefs about the ancient Maya. Mayanists draw ...

scholar

Léon de Rosny Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...

realised that both fragments were part of the same book. The larger fragment, the Troano Codex, was published with an erroneous translation in 1869–1870 by French scholar

Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg Abbé Charles-Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg (8 September 1814 – 8 January 1874) was a noted French writer, ethnographer, historian, archaeology, archaeologist, and Catholic Church, Catholic priest. He became a specialist in Mesoamerican st ...

, who found it in the possession of Juan de Tro y Ortolano in Madrid in 1866 and first identified it as a Maya book. Ownership of the Troano Codex passed to the Museo Arqueológico Nacional ("National Archaeological Museum") in 1888. Madrid resident Juan de Palacios tried to sell the smaller fragment, the Cortesianus Codex, in 1867. The Museo Arqueológico Nacional acquired the Cortesianus Codex from book-collector José Ignacio Miró in 1872. Miró claimed to have recently purchased the codex in

Extremadura Extremadura ( ; ; ; ; Fala language, Fala: ''Extremaúra'') is a landlocked autonomous communities in Spain, autonomous community of Spain. Its capital city is Mérida, Spain, Mérida, and its largest city is Badajoz. Located in the central- ...

.Noguez et al. 2009, pp. 20–21. Extremadura is the province from which

Francisco de Montejo Francisco de Montejo (; 1479 – 1553) was a Spanish conquistador in Mexico and Central America. Early years Francisco de Montejo was born about 1473 to a family of lesser Spanish nobility in Salamanca, Spain. He never documented his parentag ...

and many of his

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 came, as did

Hernán Cortés Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca (December 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions o ...

, the conqueror of Mexico.Noguez et al. 2009, p. 21. One of these conquistadors possibly brought the codex to Spain; the director of the Museo Arqueológico Nacional named the Cortesianus Codex after Hernán Cortés, supposing that he himself had brought the codex to Spain.

Gallery

File:Animal figures in the Maya codices (Plate 11) BHL41003938.jpg, Animal figures of serpents in the Maya codices File:Codex Tro-Cortesianus ff 75-76.jpg, Codex Tro-Cortesianus, pages: 75-76 Madrid rosny bb 0033.jpg, Page 34: astronomy Madrid Codex page.jpg, Facsímil Códice Tro-Cortesiano.JPG Bulletin (1915) (14578611557).jpg, Middle divisions of pages 10 and 11 of the Codex Tro-Cortesiano, showing one tonalamatl extending across the two pages Alice D. Le Plongeon (American, active Mexico 1880s) - Page of Troano Manuscript - Google Art Project.jpg, Reproduction of page of Troano Manuscript File:Maya Hieroglyphs Plate 30.jpg, Page 102 of the Codex Tro-Cortesiano, showing tonalamatls in the lower three divisions

Notes

References

* * * * * * * *

External links

PDF version of the Madrid Codex at FAMSI

Madrid Codex at archive.org
{{Authority control Astrological texts Maya codices