Aztec Writing and Codices

In late Postclassic central Mexico, c. 1300–1521, Mexica rulers at Tenochtitlan in the Basin of Mexico and other Nahua communities used painted records to name places, track obligations, arrange histories and organize ritual knowledge. The Triple Alliance, formed in 1428 by Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan, connected these three polities and expanded Mexica political power. Across Central Mexico, Nahua communities retained distinct traditions and records. Their painted books show how images, signs and spoken Nahuatl, the language used by Mexica and many other Nahua communities, could work together.

On this page5 sections

How signs carried names and actions

Nahua pictorial writing combined signs and images to carry words, sounds and actions. A sign could represent a whole word, such as a place or a person, while another could contribute a syllable or sound through a rebus, a picture chosen for how its name sounded. The Tenochtitlan sign in the Codex Mendoza joins a stone and a prickly pear cactus, elements that echo parts of the city’s Nahuatl name. A more explicit sound-based example appears on folio 52r: Tochpan, a province near present-day Veracruz on the Gulf coast, is shown as a rabbit carrying a banner. The Nahuatl words for rabbit (tochtli) and banner (pantli) contribute sounds that identify the place. Recent scholarship also identifies word signs and phonetic signs embedded in the painted attributes of gods.

Numbers and dates added further information. In a tribute page, a town glyph could be read beside product images and number marks. In a historical sequence, year signs could place rulers and events in time. The position and combination of signs indicate how a reader should interpret them. A hill, a cactus, a footprint or a speech scroll could name a place, connect episodes, or show that someone was speaking, depending on its context.

Books for histories and obligations

The Codex Mendoza, made around 1541–1542, arranges three subjects in sequence: Mexica rulers and conquests, tribute from subject communities, and aspects of daily life. Its tribute section makes the accounting format visible. On folio 52r, the glyph for the province of Tochpan appears at the left, while pictures of goods, including chili peppers, fill the rest of the page. Elsewhere, town glyphs run down a page’s margin beside the products associated with those towns. Names, goods and numerical marks work together to show what was owed and by whom.

The number signs could scale an account beyond individual items. On folio 46r of the Codex Mendoza, Tochtepec is listed as owing 16,000 balls of rubber each year. The University of Kentucky guide explains that a flag counted 20, a pine tree 400 and a tasseled incense bag 8,000, so two bag signs expressed that rubber quantity. The same page lists towns, goods and tribute intervals together, turning the painted register into a usable account.

Historical books arranged people, places and events so that a viewer could follow migrations, successions, wars or conquests. The first section of the Mendoza presents Mexica rulers in sequence. Other annals use year signs alongside place glyphs to show where an event occurred and when. As the reader follows the sequence across a page or folded panels, repeated dates and named places connect episodes into a historical account.

Ritual books and their readers

Ritual manuscripts organized dates, deities and prognostications for specialists. A tonalamatl, or day book, laid out the 260-day tonalpohualli: twenty day signs combined with thirteen numbers to form a repeating count. In the Codex Borbonicus, each surviving page of its opening almanac presents a thirteen-day period with its day signs and associated divine figures. Diviners consulted this arrangement to interpret the qualities of dates for practical decisions and ritual observances. Its page format makes the calendar count usable as a working reference.

The artists who prepared these books were called tlacuiloque (singular tlacuilo), a Nahuatl term for painter-scribes. They composed figures and signs, prepared pigments and chose a surface and format suited to the work. Their images recorded knowledge used by rulers, priests, administrators and communities. In the case of ritual almanacs, readers trained in calendrical interpretation connected a numbered day with its signs and presiding deities.

Materials and formats

Painted books could be made on amatl, paper prepared from the inner bark of a tree, or on prepared animal skin; some records were painted on cotton cloth or as single sheets. A long strip of bark paper or skin could be folded back and forth like a screen, allowing a reader to open several panels at a time and refold them for storage. The screenfold form suited a sequence of place names, dates or ritual periods. Colonial manuscripts also appeared as bound books on European paper, so the shape and material of a codex help identify how it was made and when.

The painter-scribe’s work connected material craft with an established visual vocabulary. A maker needed to select colors and place each glyph in relation to neighboring images, dates and text. In the colonial period, Indigenous artists continued using pictorial signs while adapting them to new audiences and to Spanish or alphabetic Nahuatl additions.

Surviving books and colonial changes

Very few pictorial manuscripts associated with central Mexico survive from before Spanish rule. The Codex Borgia is generally identified as a preconquest Central Mexican ritual manuscript. Its exact place of origin remains uncertain, and it represents a related regional tradition rather than a surviving archive from Tenochtitlan. The Codex Borbonicus is another early pictorial ritual book whose date is debated, with scholars placing it around the arrival of the Spanish. Many better-known books, by contrast, were made or copied under colonial rule.

The Codex Mendoza was probably commissioned around 1541–1542, two decades after the conquest, for a royal audience. Indigenous artists painted its signs, while a Nahuatl-speaking priest added Spanish explanations under a commission associated with Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza. The Florentine Codex, completed in 1577 at the Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco, was created by Bernardino de Sahagún with Nahua elders, authors and artists. It has parallel Nahuatl and Spanish columns and nearly 2,500 painted images across twelve books. The Spanish text often interprets, abbreviates or adds to the Nahuatl account, making the codex a collaborative colonial work with distinct textual perspectives.

Other colonial records put painted pages to use in legal and fiscal disputes. In 1531, Indigenous residents of Huexotzinco submitted eight pictorial sheets as part of a lawsuit over taxes and services demanded by Spanish officials. The images accompanied testimony and written legal documents, showing how Nahua communities continued to use painted evidence in court under new authorities. For the broader artistic setting, see Aztec Culture and Arts.