Mayan Codices

Summary
This report is the result of meticulous research, in which not only the illustrations but also the
material and textual features of the three leather codices were analyzed and carefully compared with
other sources.
The evidence is conclusive: these three leather codices are without a doubt a forgery, and belong to
what is called the “Calek group“. The Calek group or family is a series of forgeries dating from the
1950s to the 1970s that deal with the sixteenth-century conquest of the Maya in the northern part of
the Yucatan peninsula and the seventeenth-century conquest of the Maya interior.
Almost all of them describe a fictitious journey of three Franciscan friars to Tayasal and their meeting
with Canek, the last Itzaj Maya king, at the end of the seventeenth century. At least four of the Canek
group documents were written by the same hand, and all of them have similar stylistic
characteristics, lexicon, orthography, and content. Hanns J. Prem showed in 1999 that their texts and
illustrations were drawn from Sylvanus G. Morley’s (1946) Ancient Maya or subsequent editions and
translations.
Here are some images from forgeries of these series so you can compare the materials, the script,
and the illustrations.
This series of forgeries is very well documented among the scholarship and the experts. What is very
interesting is that the codices you have right now, although forgeries, are still not documented
anywhere, so you have most certainly stumbled upon a product of the series that escaped the notice
of the experts so far. The three pieces you have are part of what is most likely an original suite of 12
pieces (several forgeries produced during this time consist of 12 pieces).
Material
The first step in authenticating a historical document is to physically examine its surface, writing
medium, and applicator. Of course, I was unable to do it physically, but I compared the images with
original sources I was able to review and also similar forgeries. Most forgeries from these series
consist of twelve rectangular leather folios that measure approximately 4.5cm by 9.0cm and have
two perforations on each long side except for the first and last folios. Strings connect the individual
folios to each other. It seems that the original strings that connected your folios were lost much prior
to your purchase. The use of leather instead of parchment as well as the binding is extremely unusual
for a colonial Spanish report.
Physically, the leather codex reflects a conglomeration of writing traditions.
It is very common for forgeries to have a crudely polished leather base, with follicles being clearly
evident. Here’s an image of a similar forgery and the original Mayan source from which it was taken.
Historically.
Ideally, a historical document can be traced from the moment it was composed to its appearance in a
collection or on the art market. The leather codices you have (along with the rest of the forgery
series) lacks markings from previous owners that would allow it to be traced to specific collections
and their acquisition history. Nothing verifiable is known about the leather codices between its
alleged origin in the 16th century and its recent appearance that was your purchase. Most products
from the same series appeared in the art market during the ’80s.
Illustrations.
All the illustrations present in the three pieces are copies of sources discovered in the twentieth
century.
The codex IV you have features a Mayan man being carried by slaves and being accompanied by a
dog. The image is copied (with a rather unpracticed handling of paint) from the Ratinlixul vase, a
Mayan piece discovered in 1917.
Here’s an image comparing the vase illustrations with a leather codex from the same group as yours,
demonstrating the evident copy mechanism.
The two other pieces took scattered images are taken from Morley’s book „Ancient Maya“, published
in 1946 and with subsequent editions the following years. The period glyph drawings in the leather
codex copy Morley’s illustrations and differ from common Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions. For
example, the glyphs for Winal (the period of twenty days) on the IV codex includes poorly placed
strokes, incomplete glyphs, and uncoherent squiggles intended to simulate glyphs.
To the copied illustrations, they added scattered glyphs all over the codices. They try to simulate the
style of Mayan dating, but they are just senseless numbers and meaningless glyphs, poorly copied
from recognizable days and months from Moorley’s book. The result is „Mayan“ gibberish. Not even
a serious translation attempt of the glyphs is possible, given their fictional nature.
Linguistically
Next, I turn to the linguistic properties of a potential forgery. I start with anticipatory anachronisms:
words or phrases that did not exist at the time when the document was allegedly composed. The
leather codex refers to the Tzolkin, the Maya ritual calendar of 260 days (folio IV). While now widely
used, the term Tzolkin was coined only in the 1920s. ” Tzolkin appeared in print for the first time in
Herbert J. Spinden’s second edition of Ancient Civilizations of Mexico and Central America, which was
published in 1922. The word is a modern invention and would not appear in a genuine sixteenth-
century document. It’s just an anticipatory anachronism.
Handwriting
The three pieces don’t conform to the orthographic and stylistic conventions of the sixteenth
century. Stylistically, it lacks the drawn-out or rounded letters that characterize sixteenth-century
documents. The leather codices consistently abbreviate que (and) with qe, while colonial documents
tend to use q or *q. Also, spellings like “sige” for “sigue” are unheard of. A detailed look at the
leather codex’s handwriting shows that it coincides with the handwriting in the Canek group.
Conclusion
While I was unable to study the leather codex in person or submit it to physical tests, the use of
leather for a colonial Spanish report is very suspicious.
The handwriting not only ignores conventions of genuine sixteenth-century documents but also is
indistinguishable from the handwriting of other Canek group documents. The leather codex also
shares the Canek group’s linguistic properties. Particularly revealing is the use of neologisms like
Tzolkin, which were coined only in the twentieth century. With regard to its contents, the leather
codex fits into the Canek group in terms of its description of the colonial contact between Maya and
Spaniards. Finally, the drawings in the leather codex replicate illustrations found in Morley’s Ancient
Maya and the Ratinlixul vase. From these observations, I conclude that the leather codex from which
you have three folios is yet another Canek group forgery. It was likely produced between the late
1940s and 1984.
For any further question or suggestion you may have, or in case you need additional research
regarding this or any other document, feel free to contact me at joaquin.d@signatranslations.com

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Summary

Physically, the leather codex reflects a conglomeration of writing traditions.

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