The Technical Study of Two 16th Century Mexican Pictographic Documents in the NMAI Collection

Summary

This is an abstract from the "From Materials to Materiality: Analysis and Interpretation of Archaeological and Historical Artifacts Using Non-destructive and Micro/Nano-sampling Scientific Methods" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Two mid-16th century Mexican pictographic documents in the collection of the National Museum of the American Indian, a codex on amate paper from the Valley of Mexico and a lienzo on a large cotton textile from Puebla, have been well studied by historians and archaeologists yet have never been the subjects of a technical study. This paper presents the preliminary analytical results of a study that aims to holistically understand the object’s biographies, from manufacture and use through accession and conservation. In addition to technical analysis, this project looks to re-contextualize the codex and lienzo by strengthening our understanding of their relationships to historic and contemporary indigenous documentary traditions in Mexico.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• From Materials to Materiality: Analysis and Interpretation of Archaeological and Historical Artifacts Using Non-destructive and Micro/Nano-sampling Scientific Methods   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22911