The ''Paris Codex'' (also known as the ''Codex Peresianus'' and ''Codex Pérez'')
is one of four surviving generally accepted pre-Columbian
Maya books dating to the Postclassic Period of
Mesoamerican chronology
Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian, prehispanic Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian (first human habitation until 3500 BCE); the Archaic (before 2600 BCE), the Preclassic or Formative (2500 BC ...
(c. 900–1521 AD). The document is very poorly preserved and has suffered considerable damage to the page edges, resulting in the loss of some of the text. The codex largely relates to a cycle of thirteen 20-year ''
kʼatun
A ''kʼatun'' (, ) is a unit of time in the Maya calendar equal to 20 ''tuns'' or 7200 days, equivalent to 19.713 tropical years. It is the second digit on the normal Maya long count date. For example, in the Maya Long Count date 12.19.13.15.12 (D ...
s'' and includes details of Maya astronomical signs.
The ''Paris Codex'' is generally considered to have been painted in western Yucatán, probably at
Mayapan
Mayapan (Màayapáan in Modern Maya; in Spanish Mayapán) is a Pre-Columbian Maya site a couple of kilometers south of the town of Telchaquillo in Municipality of Tecoh, approximately 40 km south-east of Mérida and 100 km west of ...
. It has been tentatively dated to around 1450, in the Late Postclassic period (AD 1200–1525). More recently an earlier date of 1185 has been suggested, placing the document in the Early Postclassic (AD 900–1200). However, the astronomical and calendrical information within the codex are consistent with a Classic period cycle from AD 731 to 987 indicating that the codex may be a copy of a much earlier document.
The ''Paris Codex'' was acquired by the
Bibliothèque Royale of Paris in 1832 and is currently held at the
Bibliothèque Nationale de France
The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...
in Paris, in the Département des Manuscrits, catalogued as Mexicain 386.
Physical characteristics
The codex consists of a strip measuring long by high, folded into 11 sheets painted on both sides, forming 22 pages total.
An additional sheet is believed to have once existed, but became lost by the 19th century.
The ''Paris Codex'' is very poorly preserved, comprising a number of fragments; the lime plaster coating of the codex is badly eroded at the edges, resulting in the destruction of its
hieroglyphs
A hieroglyph (Greek for "sacred carvings") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatonis ...
and images except in the center of its pages.
[Sharer and Traxler 2006, p. 127.]
Content
The content of the codex is mainly ritual in nature, and one side of the codex contains the patron deities and associated rituals for a cycle of thirteen ''
kʼatun
A ''kʼatun'' (, ) is a unit of time in the Maya calendar equal to 20 ''tuns'' or 7200 days, equivalent to 19.713 tropical years. It is the second digit on the normal Maya long count date. For example, in the Maya Long Count date 12.19.13.15.12 (D ...
s'' (a 20-year
Maya calendrical cycle). One fragment contains animals that represent astronomical signs along the
ecliptic
The ecliptic or ecliptic plane is the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun. From the perspective of an observer on Earth, the Sun's movement around the celestial sphere over the course of a year traces out a path along the ecliptic again ...
including a scorpion and a peccary; fragments of this Maya "zodiac" are depicted on two pages of the codex. Some pages of the codex are marked with annotations made with Latin characters.
[Noguez et al 2009, p. 16.]
On one side of the codex the general format of each page largely follows the same arrangement, with a standing figure on the left hand side and a seated figure on the right hand side. Each page also contains the ''
ajaw
Ajaw or Ahau ('Lord') is a pre-Columbian Maya political title attested from epigraphic inscriptions. It is also the name of the 20th day of the ''tzolkʼin'', the Maya divinatory calendar, on which a ruler's ''kʼatun''-ending rituals would fal ...
'' day glyph combined with a numerical coefficient, in each case representing a date marking the final day of a calendrical cycle. In spite of the poor state of preservation of the document, enough text has survived to demonstrate that in the case of the ''Paris Codex'', the main series of dates correspond to ''kʼatun''-endings, allowing for the reconstruction of some of the lost date glyphs in the text. The seated figures are each associated with a sidereal glyph indicating that they represent the ruling deity of each ''kʼatun''.
The reverse of the codex is more varied in nature and includes a section dedicated to a calendrical cycle ruled by
Chaac
Chaac (also spelled Chac or, in Classic Mayan, Chaahk ) is the name of the Maya god of rain, thunder, and lighting. With his lightning axe, Chaac strikes the clouds, causing them to produce thunder and rain. Chaac corresponds to Tlaloc among ...
, the god of rain. It also includes information about the prognostication of rainfall and maize crop yields, as well as information about spiritual forces. A set of two pages illustrates the days of the ''
tzolkʼin
Tzolkʼin (, formerly and commonly tzolkin) is the name bestowed by Mayanists on the 260-day Mesoamerican calendars, Mesoamerican calendar originated by the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.
The tzolkʼin, the basic cycle of the Ma ...
'' 260-day cycle that correspond to the beginning of the solar year over a period of 52 years (a cycle of the
Calendar Round
The Maya calendar is a system of calendars used in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and in many modern communities in the Guatemalan highlands, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico.
The essentials of the Maya calendar are based upon a system which had ...
). The final two pages of the codex depict a series of thirteen animals that represent the so-called "zodiac".
Modern studies of the codex have concluded that the end of the zodiac cycle illustrated within it show "a psychological predilection to Mayan fatalism," suggesting that the end of the Mayan Classic Period was the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Origin
In common with the other two generally accepted Maya codices (the ''
Dresden Codex
The ''Dresden Codex'' is a Maya civilization, Maya book, which was believed to be the oldest surviving book written in the Americas, dating to the 11th or 12th century. However, in September 2018 it was proven that the Maya Codex of Mexico, pre ...
'' and the ''
Madrid Codex''), the document is likely to have been created in
Yucatán
Yucatán (, also , , ; yua, Yúukatan ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Yucatán,; yua, link=no, Xóot' Noj Lu'umil Yúukatan. is one of the 31 states which comprise the political divisions of Mexico, federal entities of Mexico. I ...
;
English Mayanist
J. Eric S. Thompson
Sir John Eric Sidney Thompson (31 December 1898 – 9 September 1975) was a leading English Mesoamerican archaeologist, ethnohistorian, and epigrapher. While working in the United States, he dominated Maya studies and particularly the study o ...
thought it likely that the ''Paris Codex'' was painted in western Yucatán and dated to between AD 1250 and 1450. Bruce Love noted the similarities between a scene on page 11 of the codex and Stela 1 at
Mayapan
Mayapan (Màayapáan in Modern Maya; in Spanish Mayapán) is a Pre-Columbian Maya site a couple of kilometers south of the town of Telchaquillo in Municipality of Tecoh, approximately 40 km south-east of Mérida and 100 km west of ...
; based on this he proposed that the codex was produced in Mayapan around 1450. However, further analysis of the
stela
A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...
in question suggests an earlier date of 1185 indicating that the calendrical information may refer to an earlier ''kʼatun'' cycle than the one suggested by Love. The astronomical and calendrical information within the ''Paris Codex'' are consistent with a Classic period cycle from AD 731 to 987 indicating that the codex may be a copy of a much earlier document.
Discovery
The ''Paris Codex'' came to light in 1859 when
Léon de Rosny
Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to:
Places
Europe
* León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León
* Province of León, Spain
* Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...
found it in a basket of old papers in the corner of a chimney in the
Bibliothèque Impériale
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
in Paris. The codex had apparently been examined some twenty-five years earlier by scholars and had been catalogued but it is not known how the document found its way to Paris.
[Drew 1999, p. 83.] The document was found with a piece of paper attributing it to the collection of colonial Maya documents assembled by
Juan Pío Pérez
Juan Pío Pérez Bermón (1798–1859) was a Mexicans, Mexican intellectual, philologist, researcher of Maya civilization, Maya culture and mayor of the city of Mérida, Yucatán, Mérida from 1848 to 1853. Pío Pérez studied Maya civilization ...
.
[Noguez et al 2009, p. 17.]
Gallery
Paris_Codex,_pages_19-24,_1.jpg, Pages 19-24 and page 1
Paris_Codex,_pages_21-22.jpg, Pages 21-22
The_Paris_Codex_21.tif, Pages from ''The Codex Perez; An Ancient Mayan Hieroglyphic Book''
The_Paris_Codex_22.tif,
Notes
References
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Further reading
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External links
The Paris Codexat the website of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, with public domain images of the original document.
The Paris Codexat the website of Northwestern University Library, with reconstructed images of pages
{{Authority control
Maya codices