The Codex Mendoza is a 500 year old book created by Aztec scribes, it was created for the king of Spain from the viceroy of New Spain(Mexico)so the king could learn about this newly conquered territory of his.
When the scribes finished the book it was put on a boat to be sent to Spain, when the ship was launched it was attacked by French boats and the book was taken to the king of France's translater, some years later an english official bought the artifact.
When he died the book was given to his son.
Years after he received the book it was given to one of the University of Oxford's many libraries, where it is today.
The Codex Mendoza is a picture book considering that the Aztecs had no written language they communicated by the means of pictures.
So they were sending this book written in pictures to the king of Spain.
You're probably wondering how is the king supposed to read it?
Well before I go into detail about that I should tell you the three ways of reading pictures.
There are pictographs, ideographs and rebuses.
A pictograph is a picture that means exactly what is shown, an ideograph is the idea that the picture conveys and a and a rebus is like word play.
The Aztec books were usually fold out books but the Codex Mendoza was created like our books today and was also made on european paper.
The Codex was divided into three parts, the first part lists the chiefs and conquered towns, the second part was a tribute list of everything the conquered towns had to pay and the third part was a section detailling Aztec daily life such as punishments and the choices that had to be made by the children.
Going into detail about the punishments for all those mean parents out there.
The first is to spike them with spikes of plants, the second is to beat them with sticks and the third is to hold them over burning chilis'.
I don't want to give you too many ideas of how to torture your children so I'll stop there...
Bye!!
When the scribes finished the book it was put on a boat to be sent to Spain, when the ship was launched it was attacked by French boats and the book was taken to the king of France's translater, some years later an english official bought the artifact.
When he died the book was given to his son.
Years after he received the book it was given to one of the University of Oxford's many libraries, where it is today.
The Codex Mendoza is a picture book considering that the Aztecs had no written language they communicated by the means of pictures.
So they were sending this book written in pictures to the king of Spain.
You're probably wondering how is the king supposed to read it?
Well before I go into detail about that I should tell you the three ways of reading pictures.
There are pictographs, ideographs and rebuses.
A pictograph is a picture that means exactly what is shown, an ideograph is the idea that the picture conveys and a and a rebus is like word play.
The Aztec books were usually fold out books but the Codex Mendoza was created like our books today and was also made on european paper.
The Codex was divided into three parts, the first part lists the chiefs and conquered towns, the second part was a tribute list of everything the conquered towns had to pay and the third part was a section detailling Aztec daily life such as punishments and the choices that had to be made by the children.
Going into detail about the punishments for all those mean parents out there.
The first is to spike them with spikes of plants, the second is to beat them with sticks and the third is to hold them over burning chilis'.
I don't want to give you too many ideas of how to torture your children so I'll stop there...
Bye!!
1 comment:
Hi.What a pity this book sits in an English library,and not with the people it is about. I think the kids would have been prety well behaved in those days don't you?A very well written Blog-you were obviously paying attention to the lecture.
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