1 sept. 500 - Codex in The Mayan Region

Description:

Maya codices (singular codex) are folding books written by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican bark cloth.

Alonso de Zorita wrote that in 1540 he saw numerous such books in the Guatemalan highlands that “recorded their history for more than eight hundred years back, and that were interpreted for me by very ancient Indians” (Zorita 1963, 271-2). However, not all were unaware of the books’ value; Fr. Bartolome de las Casas lamented that when found, such books were destroyed. The last codices destroyed were those of Nojpeten, Guatemala in 1697, the last city conquered in the Americas.