Oaxaca, Mexico 1691

Title devised by cataloger. Map previously identified incorrectly by the name "Lienzo map."; Tira de Santa Catarina Ixtepeji. American Geographical Society Library, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Libraries.; The scroll is believed by Zapotec language scholars Michel Oudijk and Sebastián van Doesburg to have been one of two documents from Santa Catarina Ixtepeji which were sold in the early 20th century; specifically, the one sold by a British consular official in Oaxaca named Constantine Rickards, a Mexican of Scottish descent, to a Californian mining engineer named A. E. Place. Place sold the Codex in 1917 to the American Geographical Society (AGS) of New York for their library. In a 1917 letter to the AGS, Place wrote: "Were it not for the fact that I am forging into business here, after having lost nearly all my property in Mexico, I would not sell the map at any price." The scroll is now in the American Geographical Society Library at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries. The scroll is similar to codices or codex except this was rolled rather than folded accordion style.This manuscript map is hand-painted and recounts part of the history of Santa Catarina Ixtepeji, in the Ixtlán District in the Sierra Norte region of Oaxaca in southwestern Mexico. The scroll tells the history of leadership and land ownership, and is believed to have been written in both the local Zapotec and Spanish languages. Its purpose was to regularize land titles and ownership in the eyes of the bureaucracy of the Spanish Empire. There are two dates (1691 and 1709 A.D.) inscribed on it that are believed to be the dates it was used as a visual aid in making a presentation to Imperial officials.Color