X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Maya codices


Ficus insipida

Maya codices (singular codex) are folding books stemming from the pre-Columbian Maya civilization, written in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican bark cloth, Amatl, made from the inner bark of certain trees, the main being the wild fig tree or Amate (Ficus glabrata; a synonym of the Ficus insipida).

Maya codices

The oldest Maya codices known have been found by archaeologists as mortuary offerings with burials in excavations in Uaxactun, Guaytán in San Agustín Acasaguastlán, and Nebaj in El Quiché, Guatemala, at Altun Ha in Belize and at Copán in Honduras.

Two elaborate early 20th-century forged codices were in the collection of William Randolph Hearst.



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