Maya Dresden Codex Page 12 Death God Tonalamatls In Three Divisions Mesoamerican 1915

A 100 year old original print from the Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 57 Study of Maya Hieroglyphs 1915

.It has been conjectured that these pictures represent the gods who were the patrons or guardians of the subdivisions of the tonalamatls, under which each appears. In the present case the first god pictured is the Death Deity, God A (see fig. 3). Note the fleshless lower jaw, the truncated nose, and the vertebræ. The second deity is unknown, but the third is again the Death God, having the same characteristics as the god in the first picture. The cloak worn by this deity in the third picture shows the crossbones, which would seem to have been an emblem of death among the Maya as among us. The glyphs above these pictures probably explain the nature of the periods to which they refer, or perhaps the ceremonies peculiar or appropriate to them. In many cases the name glyphs of the deities who appear below them are given; for example, in the present text, the second and sixth glyphs in the upper row[6] record in each case the fact that the Death God is figured below.

The Dresden Codex, also known as the Codex Dresdensis, is a pre-Columbian Maya book of the eleventh or twelfth century of the Yucatecan Maya in Chichén Itzá. This Maya codex is believed to be a copy of an original text of some three or four hundred years earlier. It is the oldest book written in the Americas known to historians. Of the hundreds of books that were used in Mesoamerica before the Spanish conquest, it is one of only 15 that have survived to the present day. The Dresden Codex consists of 39 sheets, inscribed on both sides, with an overall length of 3.56 metres (11.7 feet). Originally, the manuscript had been folded in accordion folds. Today, it is exhibited in two parts, each of them approximately 1.8 metres (5.9 feet) long, at the museum of the Saxon State Library in Dresden, Germany. The document has played a key role in the decipherment of Mayan hieroglyphs.

A 100 year old original print from the Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 57 Study of Maya Hieroglyphs 1915.

Size of sheet: 9” X 5 3/4”.Condition: clean sheet. See photos.

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