Codex, Maya, is a type of book produced by Maya scribes before the arrival of Spanish settlers in the Americas. Codices (the plural of codex) are historical manuscripts. A scribe is a person who writes letters, documents, or books by hand. Scribes were especially important in ancient societies in which few people could read or write. The Maya codices made use of pictograms (a system of writing with pictures) to record information. At the time of the Spanish conquest in the 1500’s, these books were widely used and had a tradition that extended back more than a thousand years. Today, only four Maya codices survive: (1) the Dresden Codex, (2) the Madrid Codex, (3) the Maya Codex of Mexico (previously known as the Grolier Codex), and (4) the Paris Codex.
Maya codices are made of bark paper. The paper is created using grooved stone hammers to pound the inner bark of tree branches into sheets. The flat sheets are then folded accordion-style into pages of equal width, forming a kind of book called a screenfold. Maya scribes would coat each page, front and back, with a thin layer of white plaster. They would then decorate this surface with images and text in the Maya hieroglyphic << HY uhr uh GLIHF ihk >> script. Hieroglyphics is a form of writing in which picture symbols represent words and sounds. When completely unfolded, the screenfold books are read from left to right.
Remnants of the plaster coating of bark-paper books have been found at such archaeological sites as Uaxactun, in what is now Guatemala . The plaster dates back to around A.D. 400 to 600, during the Maya Classic Period. These remnants, however, are poorly preserved. The four intact (surviving) codices date to around A.D. 1200 to 1521, during the late Postclassic Period. The Maya Codex of Mexico was reportedly found in Chiapas , Mexico. The other three Maya codices were likely produced in the Yucatán Peninsula .
Colonial-era historians thought elites of the Yucatec Maya (people who spoke the Yucatec Maya language) used screenfold books to document local histories and religious matters. The surviving codices, however, primarily record astronomical information and forecasts related to the sacred Maya calendar, as well as descriptions of many important deities. Later, scholars used the text and corresponding illustrations in the codices to decipher Maya writing. 
Most codices were destroyed during the Spanish conquest. Missionaries viewed the codices as superstitious and associated their use with devil worship . In 1562, the Franciscan bishop Diego de Landa ordered the infamous auto da fé (ritual condemnation and punishment) of the town of Maní, in Yucatán . Thousands of Indigenous (native) Yucatec Maya were tortured. Dozens of codices were burned, along with thousands of ritual objects.
Of the four surviving codices, three were likely sent to Europe in 1519 to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V by the Spanish conquistador << kon KEES tuh dawr >> Hernán Cortés . Conquistadors were Spaniards who conquered Indigenous peoples in parts of Latin America , mainly during the first half of the 1500’s. Historians are not sure what happened to the codices once they were sent to Europe, but in 1739, the Dresden Codex was purchased in Vienna, Austria. It now resides in the Saxon State and University Library in Dresden, Germany. It is the best-preserved and most finely executed of the existing Maya screenfolds. It details astronomical calculations, calendar correlations, and the rites associated with the new year. The Paris Codex was found in the Paris National Library in 1859, although no one knows how it came to be there. Its pages are fairly worn, leaving only the middle portion of each panel legible. The Madrid Codex appeared around the same time as the Paris Codex. It is currently housed in Madrid, Spain, at the Museum of the Americas. Although this codex is the longest of the four, its craftsmanship is the crudest. The imagery is not rendered with as much sophistication as that in the other codices, and the book’s astronomical calculations include numerous scribal errors. 
The Maya Codex of Mexico became known in the 1960’s after looters sold it to a Mexican collector. It was first exhibited to the public at the Grolier Club of New York City in 1971. It is now housed in Mexico City at the National Museum of Anthropology. The Maya Codex of Mexico is the oldest of the four surviving codices, dating back to the early 1200’s and maybe even earlier. Some scholars have suggested it may be a forgery. However, a number of analyses by scientists, art historians, and anthropologists over the years have confirmed its pre-Hispanic origin.
The codices preserve only a small sample of Maya artistry, religion, and scientific achievement. But they contain a wealth of information, hinting at the immensity of Indigenous knowledge lost during the Spanish conquest.
