Aztec script

Uncommon card · No. 196950

The Aztec or Nahuatl script is a pre-Columbian writing system used in central Mexico by the Nahua people in the Epiclassic and Postclassic periods consisting of a mixture of ideograms, a syllabary, and rebuses. It was originally thought that its use was reserved for elites; however, the topographical codices and early colonial catechisms, recently deciphered, were used by tlacuilos (scribes), macehuallis (peasants), and pochtecas (merchants). Some experts believe that no authentic precolonial Aztec codices (amoxtli) survived the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire because conquistadors burned countless codices because they considered them idolatrous and almost all extent codices consist of reproductions, censored or altered versions, or postcolonial creations that blend the Aztec script with colonial Nahuatl orthography, Spanish, or Latin. These documents also tend to utilize illustrations resembling Medieval European artforms and generally describe Aztec society in a negative light with...

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