The Codex Huamantla also known as the Codex of Huamantla and Códice de Huamantla is an

Otomi The Otomi (; es, Otomí ) are an indigenous people of Mexico inhabiting the central Mexican Plateau (Altiplano) region. The Otomi are an indigenous people of Mexico who inhabit a discontinuous territory in central Mexico. They are linguisticall ...

codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

. It contains the work of two artists, and is believed to have been completed in 1592

Common Era Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...

. The first artist depicts the story migration of the Otomi people from Chiapan to

Huamantla Huamantla () is a small city in Huamantla Municipality located in the eastern half of the Mexican state of Tlaxcala. The area has a long indigenous history, but the city itself was not founded until the early colonial period, in the 1530s. It is mo ...

during the Post-Classical period. A second artist later depicted the Otomi's participation in the conquest of the Aztec Empire and life under Spanish domination. Seven fragments of the codex are currently held in Mexico's

National Museum of Anthropology and History The National Museum of Anthropology ( es, Museo Nacional de Antropología, MNA) is a national museum of Mexico. It is the largest and most visited museum in Mexico. Located in the area between Paseo de la Reforma and Mahatma Gandhi Street withi ...

, and two fragments are in Germany's Deutsche Staatsbibliothek.

The Codex

The center of the painting depicts the migration of a group of

Otomi people The Otomi (; es, Otomí ) are an indigenous people of Mexico inhabiting the central Mexican Plateau (Altiplano) region. The Otomi are an indigenous people of Mexico who inhabit a discontinuous territory in central Mexico. They are linguisticall ...

from Chiapan to

, under the protection of the goddess Xochiquétzal and of Otontecuhtli, lord of the Otomi and of fire. The work depicts the path taken by the pilgrims with footsteps and the places marked by toponymic glyphs and in some cases by their founding myths.

Tenochtitlan , ; es, Tenochtitlan also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, ; es, México-Tenochtitlan was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear. The date 13 March 1325 was ...

, the Aztec capital is represented with its glyph and tutelary god, possibly Huitzilopochtli. A second pictograph was made above the first by a different artist. It shows the participation of the Otomi in the conquest of the Aztec Empire and the lives of the Otomi under Spanish domination. Fragments of the codex include a Franciscan monastery, church and a friar believed to depict Pedro Melendez, who initiated the construction of the buildings in 1570.

Date of creation

The exact date of the original work is unknown, but the addition of the second part by a different artist is presumed to have been completed in 1592. The work contains a line in

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...

which is read in Spanish as "''Aquí llegó el capitán hace setenta y tres años''". This is a direct reference to

Hernán Cortés Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca (; ; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of w ...

and the passage of seventy-three years, which indicates the year was 1592. It is presumed that because this portion is on the edge of the work that was added last.

Fragments

The manuscript consists of several fragments with several of portion having been lost. The codex is made of bark paper which was painted. The original work measures 8.5 meters long and 1.90 meters wide. Seven of the fragments are in Mexico's

and the remaining two fragments are in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, Germany.

References

{{reflist 1592 books Otomi history Mesoamerican codices