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| Codex Selden | |
|---|---|
| Name | Codex Selden |
| Language | Mixtec (Ñuu Savi), Colonial Nahuatl annotations |
| Date | pre-Columbian (likely 15th–16th century) |
| Material | deerskin (thin amate/bark paper debated) |
| Place of origin | Mixteca Alta (present-day Oaxaca, Mexico) |
| Location | Bodleian Library, University of Oxford |
| Accession | MS. Selden |
Codex Selden is a pre-Columbian pictorial manuscript produced in the Mixteca Alta region of present-day Oaxaca and now housed in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. The codex is an example of Mixtec codices associated with dynastic histories and rituals, and it has been the subject of conservation, multispectral imaging, and scholarly debate involving institutions such as the British Museum, the Museo Nacional de Antropología and the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Scholars including Alfonso Caso, J. Eric S. Thompson, Miguel León-Portilla, and John Pohl have contributed to its study, while technical teams from the Renaissance Society of America and the Society for American Archaeology have applied scientific imaging.
The manuscript is a folded screenfold codex composed of tanned hide or thin amate-like sheet, comparable in format to the Codex Zouche-Nuttall, the Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I, and the Codex Selden’s contemporaries such as the Codex Nuttall and the Codex Bodley. It measures approximately the same scale as other Mixtec screenfolds catalogued alongside holdings at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the National Library of Mexico. The hide is pigmented with mineral and organic pigments similar to those identified in Codex Borgia, Codex Borbonicus, and Codex Mendoza, and bound with pasteboard edges akin to items conserved by the National Museum of Anthropology (Madrid) and the Museo Amparo.
Conservation history involved interventions by conservationists from the Bodleian Libraries Conservation Unit, curators from the Ashmolean Museum, and conservators trained at the Courtauld Institute of Art. The codex’s folios show evidence of abrasion, insect damage reported by teams from the Smithsonian Institution, and previous rebinding consistent with practices documented by the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The pictorial narrative employs Mixtec iconography—glyphic patronymics, toponymic signs, and calendrical notations—comparable to systems seen in the Mendoza Codex, the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, and the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2. Its imagery records genealogies, marriage alliances, and ritual episodes similar to entries in the works analyzed by Sahagún and cited by Diego Durán. The manuscript’s signs correspond to the 260-day tonalpohualli and 365-day xiuhpohualli cycles also attested in the Florentine Codex and the Codex Borbonicus, and genealogical sequences resonate with dynastic lists discussed by Alfonso Caso and Ernesto de la Torre Villar.
Graphic elements include anthropomorphic figures, animal emblems, and emblematic place glyphs, sharing motifs with the Codex Selden’s Mixtec relatives such as the Codex Colombino-Becker and the Codex Zouche-Nuttall. Marginal annotations in alphabetic Nahuatl handwriting connect it to colonial-era scribes like those referenced in the studies of Diego Muñoz Camargo and Bernardino de Sahagún. Iconographic parallels have been noted by Miguel León-Portilla, Elizabeth Hill Boone, and Terrence Kaufman.
The manuscript’s provenance traces through colonial and early modern networks linking the Mixtec nobility, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and European collectors active in the 17th–18th centuries. It entered European collections amid the same circulation that brought the Codex Mendoza and materials collected by José de Acosta to Spain. The manuscript passed through private hands comparable to collections formed by John Selden’s heirs and other collectors associated with the Royal Society and the Bodleian Library’s early acquisitions. During the 19th and 20th centuries, it was examined by scholars connected to the Society of Antiquaries of London and catalogued alongside artifacts from the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library.
Ownership disputes and repatriation debates invoked institutions including the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia and the Museo Nacional de Antropología; diplomatic correspondence resembling cases involving the Benin Bronzes and the Elgin Marbles informed conservation policy. Recent access for study has been coordinated by curators at the Bodleian Libraries with input from researchers at the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, and teams affiliated with the Getty Conservation Institute.
Decipherment efforts have combined philological comparison, iconographic analysis, and scientific imaging pioneered at laboratories like the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and imaging centers at the University of Oxford. Multispectral imaging and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) mapping conducted by researchers affiliated with the British Library, the National Gallery (London), and the MAXXI laboratory revealed hidden underdrawings and erased pictographs similar to discoveries made on the Archimedes Palimpsest and the Codex Nuttall. Techniques applied include hyperspectral reflectance, Raman spectroscopy, and computed tomography used in projects at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Scholars such as Elizabeth Hill Boone, John Pohl, and Anne Baldwin employed comparative methods drawing on corpus-wide databases maintained by the Library of Congress and the Biblioteca Nacional de España. Findings showed erased genealogical sequences and palimpsest layers paralleling revelations in studies of the Voynich manuscript and Renaissance palimpsests investigated at the Bodleian Library.
The manuscript is central to understanding Mixtec political organization, kinship strategies, and ritual practice, complementing studies of the Mixtec codices corpus including the Codex Zouche-Nuttall, the Codex Vindobonensis and the Codex Bodley. It informs interpretations advanced by researchers at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru regarding pre-Hispanic statecraft and colonial-era identity negotiation similar to debates stimulated by the Florentine Codex and studies of Nahuatl literacy. The codex has featured in exhibitions curated by the British Museum, the Museo Nacional de Antropología and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and it continues to shape pedagogies at the School of Oriental and African Studies and the Institute of Latin American Studies.
Its study intersects with legal and ethical discussions involving the UNESCO conventions and museum provenance standards championed by the International Council of Museums and the World Monuments Fund, informing ongoing collaborations among the Bodleian Libraries, the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, and international research consortia.
Category:Mixtec codices Category:Pre-Columbian manuscripts