''"Crónica X"'' () is the name given by

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 researchers to a postulated primary-source early 16th century historical work on the traditional history of the

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...

and other central Mexican peoples, which some researchers theorize formed the basis for several other extant 16th century documents. The chronicle's author is unknown and the work has been lost, if indeed it ever existed, but it is thought to have been used as a source for several other chronicles that contain striking similarities, among these the Chronicles of Fray

Diego Durán Diego Durán (c. 1537 – 1588) was a Dominican friar best known for his authorship of one of the earliest Western books on the history and culture of the Aztecs, ''The History of the Indies of New Spain'', a book that was much criticised in hi ...

, and

José de Acosta José de Acosta (1539 or 1540 in Medina del Campo, Spain – February 15, 1600 in Salamanca, Spain) was a sixteenth-century Spanish Jesuit missionary and naturalist in Latin America. His deductions regarding the ill effects of crossing over the ...

. It has been suggested that it is to be identified with a book which is known to have been written by

Andrés de Olmos Andrés de Olmos (c.1485 – 8 October 1571) was a Spanish Franciscan priest and grammarian and ethno-historian of Mexico's indigenous languages and peoples. He was born in Oña, Burgos, Spain and died in Tampico in New Spain (modern-day T ...

but which has not survived. The similarities between the materials and scope of documents such as the Durán, Tovar and Acosta

codices 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 ...

were first noted by Robert Barlow in 1945, which led him to postulate that they all must have had a particular source in common, which he denoted as ''Crónica X''.

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cronica X Mesoamerican documents Hypothetical documents