The Codex Selden (also known as the Codex Añute) is a Mexican manuscript of

Mixtec The Mixtecs (), or Mixtecos, are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico inhabiting the region known as La Mixteca of Oaxaca and Puebla as well as La Montaña Region and Costa Chica Regions of the state of Guerrero. The Mixtec Culture wa ...

origin. The codex is an account of the genealogy of the Jaltepec dynasty from the tenth to the 16th century. Codex Selden is possibly a fragment of a much longer improperly stored document. Although it was completed after the arrival of the

conquistador Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, O ...

s in the Mixtec region, it is considered one of the six pre-Hispanic Mixtec codices that survived 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 ...

. The last date mentioned in the Codex is 1556, which can be interpreted as the date when the codex was finished. The Codex belonged to the English jurist

John Selden John Selden (16 December 1584 – 30 November 1654) was an English jurist, a scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law. He was known as a polymath; John Milton hailed Selden in 1644 as "the chief of learned ...

, who died in 1654 and left his collection of books and manuscripts at the University of Oxford. It is kept at the

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second- ...

in Oxford (shelfmark MS. Arch. Selden. A. 2). In the 1950s, an accidental scratch revealed that the Selden Codex might overlay an earlier document later covered over with a layer of gypsum and chalk, a

palimpsest In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off so that the page can be reused for another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid skin an ...

. But given the fragility of the Codex, the faint tracings seen through the scratch could not be further revealed. Traditional x-ray techniques would not be effective since the tracings were organic in composition. In 2016, researchers reported that they had successfully unveiled the underlying pre-Columbian writing using a newer scanning technique. Early analysis of the writing suggests that the original writing includes a history of the Mixtec culture with hitherto unknown details. The Bodleian Library holds four other Mesoamerican codices:

Codex Bodley The Codex Bodley is an important pictographic manuscript and example of Mixtec historiography. It was named after the colloquial name of the Bodleian Library, where it has been stored since the 17th century. History While the exact date of its ...

Codex Laud The Codex Laud, or Laudianus, (catalogued as ''MS. Laud Misc. 678'', Bodleian Library in Oxford) is a sixteenth-century Mesoamerican codex named for William Laud, an English archbishop who was the former owner. It is from the Borgia Group, and i ...

Codex Mendoza The Codex Mendoza is an Aztec codex, believed to have been created around the year 1541. It contains a history of both the Aztec rulers and their conquests as well as a description of the daily life of pre-conquest Aztec society. The codex is wri ...

, and the

Selden Roll Selden may refer to: Places In the United States: *Fort Selden, in New Mexico * Selden, Kansas * Selden, New York In Switzerland: *Selden (Kandersteg) Other uses *Selden (surname) *Selden, character from Conan Doyle's ''The Hound of the Baskervi ...

, recently renamed The Roll of the New Fire.High-tech imaging reveals precolonial Mexican manuscript hidden from view for 500 years

Eurekalert The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

18 August 2016

References

{{Reflist

External links

Catalogue of Selden manuscripts

MS. Arch. Selden. A. 2
Partial facsimile available on Digital Bodleian
MS. Arch. Selden. A. 2
in the Catalogue of Medieval Manuscripts in Oxford Libraries Mixtec codices Bodleian Library collection

Further reading

References

External links