As missionaries began to travel to the New World, the practice of ecclesiastical book censors and book burning went with them. Anxious to convert the Mayans, missionaries destroyed nearly all of their books. Only three or four Mayan books remain in the world today. One of them, the Dresden Codex, is currently owned by the Staatsarchiv in Dresden, Germany. (This link will help you to interpret the Dresden Codex.)

Other illuminated books helped the Conquerors understand the endemic culture of the Conquered. The Codex Mendoza is a record of Mexican culture prepared for Emperor Charles V between 1535-50. Apparently it was acceptable for others to write about Mayan culture, even though books written by the people who lived in that civilization were destroyed. It's an excellent example how history gets distorted when secondary, slanted information is used instead of primary source material.

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