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The Dresden Codex, also known as the ''Codex Dresdensis'', is a pre-Columbian Maya book of the eleventh or twelfth century of the Yucatecan Maya in Chichén Itzá.〔Aveni, p. 221〕 This Maya codex is believed to be a copy of an original text of some three or four hundred years earlier.〔Ruggles, pp. 133–4〕 It is the oldest book written in the Americas known to historians.〔Anzovin, p. 197 item 3342 ''The first book written in the Americas known to historians is the Dresden Codex, or Codex Dresdensis.''〕 Of the hundreds of books that were used in Mesoamerica before the Spanish conquest, it is one of only 15 that have survived to the present day.〔Lyons, Martyn. (2011). Books: A Living History. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum. p.84.〕 The Dresden Codex consists of 39 sheets, inscribed on both sides, with an overall length of . Originally, the manuscript had been folded in accordion folds. Today, it is exhibited in two parts, each of them approximately long, at the museum of the Saxon State Library in Dresden, Germany. The document has played a key role in the decipherment of Mayan hieroglyphs.〔(SLUB Dresden: The Dresden Maya-Codex )〕 == History == Johann Christian Götze, Director of the Royal Library at Dresden, purchased the codex from a private owner in Vienna in 1739. It was described, at the time of acquisition, as a "Mexican book."〔 How it came to Vienna is unknown. It is speculated that it was sent by Hernán Cortés as a tribute to King Charles I of Spain in 1519. Charles had appointed Cortés Governor and Captain General of the newly conquered Mexican territory. The codex has been in Europe ever since. In 1810, Alexander von Humboldt published five pages from the Dresden Codex in his atlas ''Vues des Cordillères et Monuments des Peuples Indigènes de l’Amérique''.〔Alexander von Humboldt: Vues des Cordillères et Monuments des Peuples Indigènes de l’Amérique. Paris, 1810, p. 416, Plate 45. (Online )〕 The state library of Saxony, the Royal Library in Dresden, first published the codex in 1848.〔Sharer, p. 127〕 It was not until 1853 that Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg identified the Dresden Codex as a Mayan manuscript.〔Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg: ''Des antiquités mexicaines''. In: Revue archéologique 9 (1853), Part 2, p. 417.〕 In 1835, the codex was placed between glass panes in two parts measuring and in length. Between 1880 and 1900, Dresden librarian Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann succeeded in deciphering the calendar section including the Maya numerals used in the codex.〔 These numbers are based on a vigesimal (base-20) numeral system, made up of three symbols: zero (shell shape), one (a dot) and five (a bar). Important milestones in the subsequent decoding of the non-calendar section were the assignment of gods to specific glyphs by Paul Schellhas in 1897 and Yuri Knorozov’s phonetic approach to deciphering in the 1950s.〔Paul Schellhas: ''Die Göttergestalten der Maya-Handschriften: Ein mythologisches Kulturbild aus dem Alten Amerika''. Verlag Richard Bertling, Dresden, 1897 〕〔Yuri V. Knorozov: ''Maya Hieroglyphic Codices''. Translated from the Russian by S. D. Coe. Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York at Albany, Pub. No. 8, Albany, N.Y., 1982〕 Knorozov's work was based on the De Landa alphabet, developed by Diego de Landa around 1566. The library that held the codex was bombed and suffered serious damage during the firebombing of Dresden in World War II. The Dresden Codex was heavily water damaged. The codex was meticulously restored;〔 however, some of the pages were returned to the protective glass cabinet out of sequence. They have remained this way because the water damage caused some of the painted areas to adhere to the glass. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dresden Codex」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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