''Antiquities of Mexico'' is a compilation of facsimile reproductions of

Mesoamerican literature The traditions of indigenous Mesoamerican literature extend back to the oldest-attested forms of early writing in the Mesoamerican region, which date from around the mid-1st millennium BCE. Many of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica are ...

such as

Maya codices Maya codices (singular ''codex'') are folding books written by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican bark paper. The folding books are the products of professional scribes working under the patronage of ...

Mixtec codices The Mixtec Group is the designation given by scholars to a number of mostly pre-Columbian documents from the Mixtec people of the state of Oaxaca in the southern part of the Republic of Mexico. They are distinguished by their principally historical ...

, and

Aztec codices Aztec codices ( nah, Mēxihcatl āmoxtli , sing. ''codex'') are Mesoamerican manuscripts made by the pre-Columbian Aztec, and their Nahuatl-speaking descendants during the colonial period in Mexico. History Before the start of the Sp ...

as well as historical accounts and explorers' descriptions of archaeological ruins. It was assembled and published by Edward King, Lord Kingsborough, in the early decades of the 19th century. While much of the material pertains to

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

cultures, there are also documents relevant to studies of the

Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico or the Spanish-Aztec War (1519–21), was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the eve ...

. ''Antiquities of Mexico'' was produced to make copies of rare manuscripts in European collections available for study by scholars. The work consists of nine volumes, each published in a large

elephant folio Paper size standards govern the size of sheets of paper used as writing paper, stationery, cards, and for some printed documents. The ISO 216 standard, which includes the commonly used A4 size, is the international standard for paper size. I ...

format. It was originally planned as ten, but Lord Kingsborough died before the full work could be completed. Kingsborough commissioned the Italian landscape painter

Agostino Aglio Agostino Aglio (15 December 1777 – 30 January 1857) was an Italian painter, decorator, and engraver. Biography He was born at Cremona. He initially studied at the Brera Academy under Giocondo Albertolli, and then traveled to Rome to work u ...

to furnish the reproduction drawings and

lithograph Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

s of the

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...

n artworks and codices used to illustrate the volumes. Born in

Cremona Cremona (, also ; ; lmo, label= Cremunés, Cremùna; egl, Carmona) is a city and ''comune'' in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po river in the middle of the ''Pianura Padana'' ( Po Valley). It is the capital of th ...

and resident in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

since 1803, Aglio had previously illustrated antiquities of Ancient Egypt and

Magna Græcia Magna Graecia (, ; , , grc, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, ', it, Magna Grecia) was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; the ...

on behalf of the English architect William Wilkins. Aglio spent the better part of six years travelling to the libraries and museums of Europe to examine and draw all of the "Ancient Mexican" documents, artefacts and manuscripts known in European collections of the time. Many of the facsimiles of codices are hand-colored.

References

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External links

Finding aid for Antiquities of Mexico Proof Sheets at the Online Archive of California
{{DEFAULTSORT:Antiquities Of Mexico Mesoamerican documents