Ideas for CODICES...

Facsimile Mixtec-Aztec Codex

Many schools try their hand at codex-making, some more successfully than others! Here are a couple of simple tips that you may or may not want to try...

In terms of imitating the look of a pre-Hispanic screenfold 'book', how about the following:-

Scrumple up a sheet of heavy brown wrapping paper and go ahead and write/draw on it, or

Pour some (cold) tea or (better!) coffee onto your pre-designed page, and hang it up to dry for several hours, or

'Cook' your pre-designed page(s) in the oven! The first one takes longer but from then on just a few seconds are needed... (You'll find the house stinks for a bit, but it's worth it!)

Our friends Amy Veryard and Carrie Gilham at Morgans Primary School, Hertford, have become expert at the latter technique at least - after a few failed attempts! They took home some of their children's carefully prepared codex pages, but overcooked and burnt them the first time round - the children were not amused... But then they got the hang of it, and you can see some of the results here.

Let us know if you have success with these and/or other techniques for giving the pages an antique look...

In terms of content, what about following Morgans School's example and getting children to prepare glyphs of their own, using some 'real' Aztec examples and others drawn from today's world; then see if they can 'read' each other's efforts? You can get some more glyph ideas (from pre-Hispanic codices) from our activity sheets - go to our main Resources page (link below).

See more Aztec craft/display work at Morgans School Our Resources page ‘Codex Exercise’ - excellent resource for teachers developed by NEH Summer Institute for School Teachers, Oaxaca, 2015