ANCIENT BOOKS

CODICES OF THE BORGIA GROUP

Codex Laud is preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. One of the five principal divinatory almanacs of the Borgia Group, most of its eleven sections are assigned to particular aspects of the tonalpohualli, the 260 day cycle of auguries. Other sections featuring bar and dot numerals probably relate to bundle offerings still featured in rituals practiced today by the Tlapanec and Mixe peoples of Oaxaca and Guerrero.

Codex Fejervary-Mayer is closely related to Codex Laud in style. It is preserved in the Free Public Museum, Liverpool. Like Laud, it shares some features with Codex Borgia but it also illustrates a unique diagrammatic scheme of the four world directions organized as a cross surrounding a sacred center. The days of the tonalpohualli are assigned to the directions and each division is presided over by a pair of gods, sacred trees, birds and other significant icons.

Codex Rios, or Codex Vaticanus A as it is also known, is found in the collections of the Vatican Library in Rome. Together with a closely related manuscript called Telleriano Remensis, located in the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris, Codex Rios has served generations of scholars as a "rosetta stone" for the decipherment of the religious manuscripts of the Borgia Group. At least part of the text is attributed to Pedro de los Ríos who was a Dominican friar working in Oaxaca and Puebla between 1547 and 1562. Little more is known of the friar and his activities. Lord Kingsbrough was the first to publish a facsimile of the manuscript along with an English translation from the Italian (Kingsborough 1831-1848). The trecena pages are especially informative for their detailed descriptions of the patron gods of the Nahua pantheon. Some scholars believe the manuscript may reflect the religious values of the Tehuacan Valley kingdoms in particular. Some differences in cognate scenes in members of the Borgia Group of manuscripts can be detected and these are noted below the text in the images below.

Recommended Reading

Anders, Ferdinand, Maarten Jansen, and Luis Reyes García 1993 Los templos del cielo y de la oscuridad: Ortículos y liturgia. Libro explicativo del llamado Códice Borgia (Museo Borgia P.F. Messicano 1) Biblioteca Apostólica Vaticana. Spain: Sociedad Estal Quinto Centenario, Austria: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Anders, Ferdinand and Maarten Jansen 1996 Religión, Costumbres, e Historia de los Antiguos Mexicanos: Libro Explicativo del Llamado Códice Vaticano A. Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt and México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Byland, Bruce E. 1993 Introduction and Commentary to Codex Borgia. In Codex Borgia: A Full-Color Restoration of the Ancient Mexican Manuscript by Gisele D'az and Alan Rogers. New York: Dover Publications Inc.

Quinones Keber, Eloise 1995 Codex Telleriano-Remensis: Ritual Divination and History in a Pictorial Aztec Manuscript. Austin: University of Texas Press.

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