Commentary on the Dresden Codex

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Author: Forstemann, Ernst Wilhelm (1822-1906) Year: 1992 Publisher: Aegean Park Press Place: Laguna Hills, CA Description: xi+212 with figures and tables. Quarto (11" x 8 1/4") bound in original publisher's wrappers. Translated by Selma Wesselhoeft and A M Parker. Reprint of the Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. Volume IV, number 2 (1906). Johann Christian Gotze, Director of the Royal Library at Dresden, purchased the codex from a private owner in Vienna in 1739. How it came to Vienna is unknown. It is speculated that it was sent by Hernan Cortes as a tribute to King Charles I of Spain in 1519. Charles had appointed Cortes governor and captain general of the newly conquered Mexican territory. The codex has been in Europe ever since. In 1810, Alexander von Humboldt published five pages from the Dresden Codex in his atlas Vues des CordillÃ¨res, et monumens des peuples indigÃ¨nes de l'AmÃ©rique . The state library of Saxony, the Royal Library in Dresden, first published the codex in 1848. It was not until 1853 that Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg identified the Dresden Codex as a Mayan manuscript. In 1835, the codex was placed between glass panes in two parts measuring 1.85 meters (6.1 feet) and 1.77 meters (5.8 feet) in length. Between 1880 and 1900, Dresden librarian Ernst Wilhelm Forstemann succeeded in deciphering the calendar section including the Maya numerals used in the codex. These numbers are based on a vigesi

Printing: later
Binding: Hardcover

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