Mayan codices

Maya codices (singular codex) are folding books written by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican bark cloth. The folding books are the products of professional scribes working under the patronage of deities such as the Tonsured Maize God and the Howler Monkey Gods. Most of the codices were destroyed by conquistadors and Catholic priests in the 16th century. The codices have been named for the cities where they eventually settled. The Dresden codex is generally considered the most important of the few that survive.

The cloth was made from the inner bark of certain trees, the main being the wild fig tree or amate (Ficus glabrata). This sort of paper was generally known by the word āmatl [ˈaːmat͡ɬ] in Nahuatl, and by the word huun in Mayan. The Maya developed their huun-paper around the 5th century, which is roughly the same time that the codex became predominant over the scroll in the Roman world. Maya paper was more durable and a better writing surface than papyrus.

Our knowledge of ancient Maya thought must represent only a tiny fraction of the whole picture, for of the thousands of books in which the full extent of their learning and ritual was recorded, only four have survived to modern times (as though all that posterity knew of ourselves were to be based upon three prayer books and Pilgrim's Progress).

There were many books in existence at the time of the Spanish conquest of Yucatán in the 16th century; most were destroyed by the Conquistadors and Catholic priests. Many in Yucatán were ordered destroyed by Bishop Diego de Landa in July 1562. In his conviction of the superiority and absolute truth of Christianity, De Landa wrote:

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