{"id":2339,"date":"2018-08-14T20:44:56","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T20:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/?p=2339"},"modified":"2026-02-27T08:54:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T08:54:41","slug":"aztec-codices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/aztec-codices\/","title":{"rendered":"Aztec Codices: A Detailed Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aztec codices are some of the most important and studied historical records of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and detail the major aspects of Aztec daily life<\/a>. For instance, these Aztec codices include references to everything from religious beliefs<\/a> and astronomical knowledge to economic transactions and Aztec social customs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

WHO WERE THE AZTEC?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0Aztec Empire<\/a>\u00a0was a civilization in central Mexico that thrived in the time before the arrival of European explorers during the\u00a0Age of Exploration<\/a>.\u00a0 Throughout its history as a civilization the Aztec Empire expanded<\/a> across much of central Mexico and other surrounding areas, to become the most dominant and powerful people in the region.\u00a0\u00a0Tenochtitlan<\/a>, the main Aztec city (or altepetl), was the center of this vast empire.\u00a0 Much of the information that historians have today in regards to the Aztec come from the many different Aztec codices.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Map
Map of the Aztec Empire and Aztec Triple Alliance by History Crunch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

WHAT ARE THE AZTEC CODICES?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

These are books containing Aztec writing<\/a> that were created before, during and after the arrival of Europeans during the Age of Exploration.\u00a0 The codices are important to our modern understanding of the Aztec because they are some of the best first-hand accounts of Aztec history.\u00a0 The codices were not books in the same sense, as we understand them to be today.\u00a0 Instead, they were more like long, folded sheets that were made out of deer skin.\u00a0 As well, the Aztec had no known written language, and instead displayed their ideas in glyphs or pictures.\u00a0 This means that the Aztec wrote using images that represented the different words or themes of which they wished to express.\u00a0 The\u00a0language of the Aztec\u00a0is called Nahuatl, which was the dominant language of Central Mexico from as early as the 7th century CE.\u00a0 While historians and linguists have identified several different varieties of Nahuatl, it is best known as the language of the Aztecs from their rise to prominence in the 14th century until they were conquered by Spanish conquistadors in 1521.\u00a0 Most of the surviving Aztec codices are from the timeframe around European colonization of central Mexico, with very few remaining from before the arrival of European explorers.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Aztec
The founding of Tenochtitlan from Codex Mendoza.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

AZTEC CODICES – THE FLORENTINE CODEX<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For example, the Florentine Codex is one of the best examples of an Aztec codex.  It was created by Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahag\u00fan from about 1545 until 1590.  Sahag\u00fan worked with different Nahua men from the region to research and organize his findings in the Florentine Codex.  In all, the work ended up filling twelve books totaling over 2400 pages.  As well it included over 2000 pictograms drawn by Mesoamerican artists that depict the history and life of the Aztec people.  While, Sahag\u00fan titled his work \u2018The Universal History of the Things of New Spain\u2019, it is more commonly known today as the Florentine Codex due to it currently being located in Florence, Italy.  These surviving codices display the Aztec artistic representation of different aspects of their life, such as: cultural traditions, religious traditions, gods, ceremonies, historical events and more.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are over 500 different surviving Aztec codices, with that the vast majority of them being from after the arrival of European explorers.  Regardless, they remain important records of the Aztec and the history and significance of these Mesoamerican people.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Flower
Aztec Warriors from the Florentine Codex.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aztec codices were an important part of the Aztec Empire since they displayed much of what we now known about Aztec culture. Historians continue to study these Aztec codices to better understand the daily lives of the Aztec people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,80],"tags":[77,15,79],"class_list":["post-2339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aztec-empire","category-mesoamerica","tag-aztec-empire","tag-history","tag-mesoamerica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2339"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5844,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339\/revisions\/5844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}