Studies of Mixtec place signs that have followed Caso's 1949 breakthrough have repeatedly shown how important the knowledge of contemporary Mixtec people is for understanding the books created by their ancestors.(3) In many cases,
the "where" of the Mixtec past is also the where of
the Mixtec present. Many places in the Mixteca are
still called by the names they possessed in
Precolumbian times. It is therefore possible to link
features of the contemporary landscape--hills,
rivers, even the archaeological ruins of palaces
and temples--to their codical depictions painted
five centuries ago. The pages that follow discuss
how individualplace signs are read, as well as
how the inventory of place signs in a codex allows
