Search Manuscript - Find Wisdom

The invasion of conquistadors to America resulted in almost total destroyal of documents and manuscripts of Mesoamerican rituals and life.  One of a little few that survived the ordeal is located in the Apostolic Library of Vatican.  Specialists call this famous manuscript  Codex Borgia  - it consists of 39 sheets of made of the animal skin.  All sheets except one are painted on both sides. Up to this day Codex Borgia remains an enigma: nobody knows its origin, although many believe that it came from someplace on the territory of the modern Mexican state Puebla.

The dsicovery of the manuscript is interesting story by itself. It seems that the document was brought from America to Italy during early  Spanish colonial period. The last owner of the manuscript was Italian cardinal Stefano Borgia (which explains the name of the codex).  Borgia was a well-known theologian, antiquarian, and historian of the 18th century.  When he died in 1804 he left the treasure of invaluable artifacts that he collected throughout his life.  Alexander von Humboldt, extraordinary German naturalist and explorer, due to his greatness was allowed by Vatican to organize the artifacts in 1805.  This is where Alexander  discovered the enigmatic document and realized its importance, as he traveled so many times to America with research expeditions. 

Even now specialists can not claim that they decoded every piece of the codex correctly because  nobody can understand the ways of ancient Aztec priests.  Thus, the largest part of the great manuscript contains the whole story with rituals, ball games and historical events that are not decoded. And up to this day the longest sequence in the document remains a mystery.

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