El Pais
By CARLOS S. MALDONADO
Mexico – MAR 22, 2024 – 00:15 CET
María Castañeda de la Paz still vividly recalls discovering the Codices of San Andrés Tetepilco in 2009. While on vacation, a colleague mentioned a friend who had some potentially interesting manuscripts. She went to a meeting in Mexico City’s ritzy Coyoacán neighborhood and was amazed to find copies of these codices, one of which narrates the history of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec empire’s ancient capital. “It’s not every day you come across documents like this,” said Castañeda de la Paz. “I was thrilled and surprised because documents about the history of Tenochtitlan are very rare.” She is among a team of experts who unveiled the discovery on March 20 at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. After years of research and negotiations, the Mexican government paid 9.5 million pesos (roughly $500,000) to the family that owned these historical manuscripts.