A Maya codex is a painted book, made of bark cloth paper and painted with Maya civilization hieroglyphs. There were untold numbers of these manuscripts made by the late Classic Maya civilization, and the books illustrate towns and legends, and detail kingly descent and other information that the Maya held sacred.
There are three surviving Maya codices known in the world: the Dresden codex, Madrid codex, and Paris codex. The three codexes were sent to museums, and each codex was named for the city that received them.
Originally there were probably hundreds of codices; the Spanish clerics burned most of them as heresy in 1521. How the codices from Central America got to Europe is, oddly enough, unknown, although they were probably sent to Spain by the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes. One additional fragment, called the Grolier codex, was found in Mexico in 1965.
Sources
Digital images and detailed information about the Paris Codex is online at Northwestern University; FAMSI does the same for the Dresden Codex, Madrid Codex and Grolier Codex.
This glossary entry is part of the Guide to the Maya Civilization and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
