Lienzo de Tlaxcala

Lienzo de Tlaxcala

‘Lienzo’ means ‘canvas’ or ‘piece of cloth’ in Spanish

The original Lienzo de Tlaxcala was a painted cotton sheet approximately 2 meters wide and 5 meters long. It was probably created around 1552. A large scene at the top depicted the political structure of the Central‘¦

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Codex Nuttall

Codex Nuttall

‘Codex’ comes from the Latin ‘caudex’ (‘book,’ ‘tree trunk,’ ‘idiot’).

The Codex Nuttall is 11.22 meters in length, and is folded into 47 “pages” measuring approximately 24.3 by 18.4 cm. It was probably created around 1500. The codex is painted on both sides. These two different‘¦

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Matricula de Tributos

Matricula de Tributos

‘Matrícula’ means ‘register’ or ‘enrollment’ in Spanish.

The Matrícula de Tributos (‘Register of Tribute’) consists of 16 sheets (‘folios’) of paper made from the bark of the amate tree. Although some of the early folios are heavily damaged, whole sheets measure‘¦

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The Molina Vocabulario

The Molina Vocabulario

This Vocabulario was the first dictionary printed in the Americas.

Fray Alonso de Molina’s Vocabulario en la lengua Castellana y Mexicana was published in 1555 at the Mexico City printing house of Juan Pablos. It consists of a title page (with a woodcut showing Saint Francis‘¦

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Codex Selden

Codex Selden

The Codex Selden records over 500 years of indigenous history.

The Codex Selden is approximately 5.5 meters in length, and is folded into twenty ‘pages’ approximately 27.5 by 27.5 cm. It was probably created around 1560. As it is currently preserved, only one side of the codex‘¦

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Mesolore is a bilingual resource for scholars and students of Mesoamerica.

Mesolore includes:

Three interactive indigenous documents from Central Mexico (the circa 1519 Matrícula de Tributos, the 1552 Lienzo de Tlaxcala, the 1555 Spanish-Nahuatl Vocabulario of Alonso de Molina)

Three interactive indigenous documents from Oaxaca (the circa 1500 Codex Nuttall, the 1560 Codex Selden, the 1593 Spanish-Mixtec Vocabulario of Francisco de Alvarado)

  • Archives of alphabetic documents from the 1520s to the 1960s

  • Introductory Tutorials on indigenous writing and culture in Central Mexico and Oaxaca

  • An interactive Atlas of Mesoamerica

  • Video and audio commentaries by Scholars on Mesoamerica’s past and present

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Sponsors
  • nsf national science foundation
  • fordfoundation
  • numanities
  • the davis foundations