Mesolore includes three primary-source documents from the sixteenth-century Mixteca: the Precolumbian Codex Nuttall, the circa 1560 Codex Selden, and the 1593 Alvarado Vocabulary. Together, these three documents provide an overview of the ways in which Mixtec writing was transformed with the arrival of Spanish colonialism. The two interactive codices included on Mesolore allow you to compare, contrast, and explore a pictorial tradition of indigenous writing as it was used before and after the arrival of the Spaniards.
The Mixtec codices are three-dimensional objects of accordion-folded deerskin--click on the Unfolding Codex link in the control panel for a video of the Codex Nuttall being opened, unfolded, and closed. This physical structure--a long narrow strip of continuously flowing images--is difficult to present in the squat rectangle of a computer screen. In order to preserve as many of the features of an actual codex as possible in this electronic format, Mesolore allows users to view the images of a codex from a number of different perspectives. A series of three visual levels allows you to "zoom in" on the pages of the Codex Nuttall and Codex Selden in greater and greater detail.
A first level of magnification shows the entire surface of the codex at once. The codices were originally created to be viewed hanging from the walls of elite palaces, and it is possible that some features of the visual composition of these documents will only become visible when many pages are seen together, from a distance. Both of the introductory animations end with full-codex views. You can also access multipage views of both codices from the "Codex Layout" link, included in the control panel.
However, it is the single-page view that is most often used when reading these documents. Clicking on any codex page in the introductory courtyard or courtroom will bring you to the corresponding page in the second level of codex magnification. From this second, full-page view level, you may click on the left or the right side of the screen in order to scroll horizontally along the unfolded codex (this partially preserves the continuously-flowing image painted on an actual screenfold). A bar of numbers at the bottom of the screen registers your viewing location; you may click on any of these numbers to jump directly to the appropriate page. Using the options in the fold-out control panel, you may choose to display textual glosses for the individual images (show balloons), the full interpretive text for the codex (show text), as well as the reading order across the page that this interpretation follows (show reading order).
Finally, clicking anywhere on the page of the codex will link you to a third level of magnification: detailed views of each image in the codex. On this level, a list of attributes describes the costume worn by the individual in question, and you can move to images to the left, right, above, and below of the detail you are currently seeing by clicking on the arrows that surround that image (a dark arrow indicates that you will be crossing a page boundary). You may also search all of the lists of attributes included in this level by clicking on the Search Attributes link. This will bring up a floating panel in which you can search hundreds of topics, from names to styles of nose ornamentation to types of ceramic vessel. Each search will bring up a list of names; you can either search these results again for another item, or click on any name to bring up the detail screen for that individual. Use this search function to help familiarize yourself with Mixtec iconography (what does a butterfly look like? a chile plant?) and to explore research questions of your own.
