Codex vaticanus: Did you mean...?

The pantheon of the Maya is a vast collection of deities worshipped throughout the regions of Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas in Mexico and southward through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. These gods informed...

Libraries were a feature of larger cities across the ancient world with famous examples being those at Alexandria, Athens, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Nineveh. Rarely ever lending libraries, they were typically designed for visiting scholars...

Scandinavians from the island of Gotland began to spread throughout the Baltic region along the Russian rivers in the 700s. While the Vikings of Norway and Denmark from the 8th to 11th centuries are widely recognized as fearsome raiders and...

A scene from the 16th-century Florentine Codex depicting Aztec musicians. Music and dance were an important element of Aztec education and public life.

An illustration from the Florentine Codex depicting Aztecs storing maize.

Huexotl, ink and paint on parchment, unknown artist, included in the Florentine Codex by Bernardino de Sahagún, Book 11, folio 144v, Mexico, 1577. A willow tree, known as huexotl in Nahuatl, grows from a body of curling blue water. Simple...

Chalchiutlicue or "She of the Jade Skirt", ink and natural pigment on agave paper, unknown artist, included in the Codex Borbonicus by unknown Aztec priests, Mexico, 16th century Chalchiuhtlicue was the Aztec goddess of lakes and streams...

Axolotl, ink and paint on parchment, unknown artist, included in the Florentine Codex by Bernardino de Sahagún, Mexico, 1577. An axolotl, which was described by the accompanying Spanish textual gloss as a meal fit for the nobility. Described...

Hummingbird drinking nectar, book illustration by unknown artist, included in Bernardino de Sahagún's Florentine Codex, "Book XI: Natural Things," p. 54, 1577. Medicea Laurenziana Library, Florence.

Codex Bodleianus (Cod. graec. Misc. 251, Auct. T. 4. 13), Bodleian Library, c. 11th or 12th century CE. The Discourses of Epictetus by Arrian. The large stain on the manuscript on this page (Book 1. 18. 8-11) has made this passage partially...