Recording The Mysteries
In the late 1560s Diego de Landa wrote of how Maya books, or codices, of 'ancient matters and sciences' had been burned because they contained 'superstition.' Just four codices survived, only one of which, the Grolier Codex, has remained in the Americas.
Maya codices consist of long strips of paper made from the bark of the fig tree, and are several feet long. Codices are folded in concertina fashion, much like a modern map, allowing much of the book to be viewed at any one time as required. The paper was prepared with a layer of limewash on which the scribe painted.
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