What is up with these codices?

1. What do the Maya codices say?
2. What are the 4 codices?
3. What happened to most of the codices?
4. What were codices written on?

What do the Maya codices say?

The pages of the codices usually depict a deity and include a series of glyphs describing what the deity is doing. Many pages of these books also contain lists of numbers that allowed the Maya to predict lunar and solar eclipses, the phases of the moon, and movements of Mars and Venus.

What are the 4 codices?

Only four great codices have survived to the present day: Codex Vaticanus (abbreviated: B), Codex Sinaiticus (ℵ), Codex Alexandrinus (A), and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C).

What happened to most of the codices?

Most of the codices were destroyed by conquistadors and Catholic priests in the 16th century. The codices have been named for the cities where they eventually settled. The Dresden codex is generally considered the most important of the few that survive.

What were codices written on?

The codex (plural codices /ˈkoʊdɪsiːz/) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term codex is often used for ancient manuscript books, with handwritten contents.