Azcatitlan Codex returned to Mexico for exhibition — Daily Maverick
In Mexico City, the Azcatitlan Codex, a 16th-century manuscript that tells the history of the Aztecs, has returned to Mexico for a temporary exhibition for the first time since 1840. The artifact, considered one of the most important visual testimonies to Aztec history, was loaned to the country by the French National Library.
Manuscript from France
As Daily Maverick reports, the codex has been kept in France since 1898. It was handed over to Mexico as part of the celebrations marking 200 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The exhibition will run until December at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.
In return, Mexico will lend France another important historical document, the Boturini Codex.
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History of the Mexica
The Azcatitlan Codex combines Mesoamerican pictograms and European writing and consists of three parts. According to Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, it traces the migration of the Mexica from Aztlan, the mythical ancestral homeland of the Aztec civilization, to the founding of Tenochtitlan on the site of present-day Mexico City.
The manuscript also describes the succession of tlatoani, or city rulers, the arrival of the Spaniards, the conquest, and the subsequent evangelization. María Castañeda de la Paz, a historian at the Institute of Anthropological Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said that the codex was created by an Indigenous master from the Otomi people.
María Eugenia Castañeda, a representative of the Mexica people, stressed that such codices are important for the identity, customs, and culture of Indigenous peoples.
