Publisher's description:
The only value-priced, full-color edition of the pre-Columbian Mexican (Mixtec) book. Features 88 color plates of kings, gods, heroes, temples, sacrifices, and more. New introduction.

From the back cover:
In the year 1519 the Spanish conquistador Fernando Cortés sent to the Emperor Charles V "dos libros delos que tienen los yndios," or two hand-painted books from the native cultures of Middle America. One of them may have been the Mixtec manuscript now known as the Codex Nuttall.
Originating in what is now the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, the Codex Nuttall was painted by Mixtec artists at some time not too long before the Spanish Conquest. It is, in effect, a Book of Kings, one of a series of masterworks narrating in picture and hieroglyph the sacred history of the Mixtecs. Centering around the year 1000 A.D., it shows the births of kings, their marriages, offspring, and major events in their lives.
Over a dazzling white gesso background swarm hundreds of figures painted in rich earth colors. Kings in elaborate costumes of textiles and skins, ornamented with feathers, wearing elaborate masks of the pre-Columbian gods, carrying ceremonial objects, wearing strange accoutrements, stalk or squat through the pages. Warriors in battle dress advance, marriage ceremonies are celebrated with bowls of frothed chocolate, kings and their consorts face one another in solemn rites, a child is born, a naked priest rips the heart out of a victim in a stark temple, rows of figures bear tribute or offer ceramics and decorated aprons, grave men make hieratic gestures to one another, a leopard bares his teeth, a woman kneels by a stream, fantastic twin temples rise to the sky, and the strange Mixtec symbols, mostly undeciphered, convey hints of place names now lost.
This is a strange world of vision, perplexing at times in what it communicates, awe-inspiring for its simple, powerful technique, at times baffling, but a realm of beauty and visual symbol without modern counterpart. Within its alien aesthetics it is one of the most beautiful books in the world, and it deserves a modern re-experiencing.
Complete reproduction, in full color, of the Codex Nuttall, prepared from the 1902 facsimile edition. 88 plates. New introduction by Dr. Arthur G. Miller, Center for Pre-Columbian Studies, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.