posting about this cause i'm just finding out
Mexican government acquires long-lost Aztec manuscripts about the rise and fall of TenochtitlanMaría Castañeda de la Paz still vividly recalls discovering the Codices of San Andrés Tetepilco in 2009. While on vacation, a colleague mentioned a friend who had some potentially interesting manuscripts. She went to a meeting in Mexico City’s ritzy Coyoacán neighborhood and was amazed to find copies of these codices, one of which narrates the history of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec empire’s ancient capital. “It’s not every day you come across documents like this,” said Castañeda de la Paz. “I was thrilled and surprised because documents about the history of Tenochtitlan are very rare.” She is among a team of experts who unveiled the discovery on March 20 at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. After years of research and negotiations, the Mexican government paid 9.5 million pesos (roughly $500,000) to the family that owned these historical manuscripts.
The effort to acquire documents dating from the late 16th century and early 17th century was long and fraught with setbacks. “The person who showed me photos of the codices on a computer mentioned they belonged to a family, but didn’t provide details other than the family had two or three documents. I was given some color copies to analyze, and I suggested registering them to prevent a rise in black market value. The family wasn’t interested in that, and I started to have some doubts about who really owned the codices. I tried many times to contact the family but they were unresponsive, and unfortunately their interest eventually faded,” said Castañeda de la Paz, a researcher at the Anthropological Research Institute of Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM).
Unable to persuade the family with the valuable manuscripts, Castañeda de la Paz contacted Baltazar Brito Guadarrama, head of the National Library of Anthropology and History (BNAH), and showed him the copies. Brito then led the effort to contact the family and acquire the codices. “I was totally surprised when I opened the little box they were in. And when I lifted the first sheet, I just knew it was an original document,” said Brito. The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) hasn’t disclosed the owners’ identities, but Brito says they said the documents were passed down through generations in the same family.
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