The Madrid Codex: New Approaches to Understanding an Ancient Maya Manuscript.

VAIL, Gabrielle and AVENI, Anthony (editors).

ISBN 10: 0870819399 / ISBN 13: 9780870819391

Published by University Press of Colorado,, Boulder:, 2009

About this Item

First paperback printing. Fine in illustrated wraps.

Seller Inventory # 98848

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Madrid Codex: New Approaches to Understanding an Ancient Maya Manuscript.
• Publisher: University Press of Colorado,, Boulder:
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0870819399
• ISBN 13: 9780870819391
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Paperbacks II
  • History
  • Native American

About this title

Synopsis

This volume offers new calendrical models and methodologies for reading, dating, and interpreting the general significance of the Madrid Codex. The longest of the surviving Maya codices, this manuscript includes texts and images painted by scribes conversant in Maya hieroglyphic writing, a written means of communication practiced by Maya elites from the second to the fifteenth centuries A.D. Some scholars have recently argued that the Madrid Codex originated in the Petén region of Guatemala and postdates European contact. The contributors to this volume challenge that view by demonstrating convincingly that it originated in northern Yucatán and was painted in the Pre-Columbian era. In addition, several contributors reveal provocative connections among the Madrid and Borgia group of codices from Central Mexico.

Contributors include: Harvey M. Bricker, Victoria R. Bricker, John F. Chuchiak IV, Christine L. Hernández, Bryan R. Just, Merideth Paxton, and John Pohl. Additional support for this publication was generously provided by the Eugene M. Kayden Fund at the University of Colorado.

About the Author

Gabrielle Vail is a research scholar at New College of Florida and a specialist in Maya hieroglyphic writing. She is the coeditor of Papers on the Madrid Codex (with Victoria Bricker). Anthony Aveni is the Russell Colgate Distinguished University Professor of Astronomy, Anthropolgy, and Native Amerifan Studies at Colgate University. He has researched and written about Maya Astronomy for more than four decades. He was named a U.S. National Professor of the year and has been awarded the H.B. Nicholson Medal for Excellence in Research in Mesoamerican Studies by Harvard's Peabody Museum.