The Oldest Surviving Book in the Americas

The Oldest Surviving Book in the Americas The Oldest Surviving Book in the Americas nytimes.com/2022/10/17/books/review/codice-maya-de-mexico-andrew-d-turner.html Lauren ChristensenOctober 17, 2022 Representing the first appearance of evening star, Page 6 contains the codex’s “most gruesome and terrifying scene,” Turner writes, blood gushing from the severed head of the skeleton deity’s captive.Credit...Enrico Ferorelli for National Geographic, reproduction authorized by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia Supported by Continue reading the main story Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. By Lauren Christensen Oct. 17, 2022 When the Spanish invaded the Yucatán Peninsula in the 16th century, they were met with a system of beliefs, practices, art and language so sophisticated and complex that they neither comprehended nor trusted it. Desperate to root out an Indigenous culture they considered “pagan,” the Catholic colonizers destroyed everything they could — hieroglyphic texts, artworks, “idols” — across a region that includes modern-day Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Belize. ImageA detail of Page 4 of the codex shows the artist’s sketch in red, underneath the final painting in charcoal-based pigment. A detail of Page 4 of the codex shows the artist’s sketch in red, underneath the final painting in charcoal-based pigment.Credit...Enrico Ferorelli for National Geographic, reproduction authorized by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia They almost succeeded. “Of the hundreds that existed before the Spanish invasion, only four Maya codices survive today,” Jesús Guillermo Kantún Rivera writes in CÓDICE MAYA DE MÉXICO (Getty Research Institute, $24.95), edited by Andrew D. Turner. The book presents the 10 remaining fragments of the fourth codex, the oldest and the only one still in the Americas (the other three are housed in Dresden, Madrid and Paris). Its existence, Turner says, is “miraculous.” Image UV fluorescence imaging of Pages 8 to 10 of Códice Maya de México shows stains from moisture and bug excrement.Credit...Gerardo Gutiérrez, reproduction authorized by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia Dating from 1100, this codex — the work of a single artist on long sheets of amate, paper made from fig tree bark — reveals the Mayan preoccupations with time and the cosmos, as well as the “otherworldly” role of the scribe. It predicts the 584-day cycle of the planet Venus as it transitions between morning and evening star and periods of invisibility. Image Page 3 depicts Venus’s eight-day period of invisibility.Credit...Enrico Ferorelli for National Geographic, reproduction authorized by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia “By studying the codices,” Kantún Rivera writes, “we are retrieving fragments of wisdom that the rain forest could not consume and that the inquisitor’s fire did not burn. Despite attempts to weaken our collective memory, we can once again read aloud and remember what we thought was lost.” Lauren Christensen is an editor at the Book Review. / Powered by PrintFriendly.com Privacy