Cave, City, and Eagle’s Nest: An Interpretive Journey Through the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2

Description

Cave| City| and Eagle’s Nest is the culmination of an international research project and series of conferences| organized by the Moses Mesoamerican Archive| focused on the sixteenth-century pictorial manuscript known as the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2. Painted on bark paper and measuring 109 X 204 centimeters| this extraordinary document contains over seven hundred images and symbols relating the story of the emergence of ancestors at Chicomoztoc (Place of Seven Caves)| their migration to the sacred city of Cholula| their foundation and settlement of Cuauhtinchan (Place of the Eagle’s Nest)| their community’s history and claim over the surrounding landscape| and many other occurrences along the way. Aztecs| the mapa recently underwent extensive physical analysis| conservation| and a systematic photographic survey. These rare images – including sixteen full-size sections and a nearly quarter-size facsimile – accompany fifteen richly illustrated essays that explore the meanings and uses of the document| its complex narrative| and the social and ritual memory of an indigenous community struggling to hold its own in the turbulent atmosphere of early colonial Mexico.