Aztecs

A colourful set of four cork backed coasters decorated with motifs taken from two beautiful, Aztec codices: codex Borgia and codex Vindobonensis.

Codex Borgia is one of the most spectacular pre-colonial religious manuscripts. Most likely, it was painted for (and in) the ceremonial centre of Cholula in Central Mexico; nowadays it is in the Vatican Library. The painted symbols express the influence of specific deities on subdivisions of the calendar and indicate the care that humans should take during those times.
Codex Vindobonensis is in the possession of the Austrian National Library in Vienna since 1677 and showcases 52 folding pages of highly detailed pictograms which depict not only mythological events but moreover an entire historical background of information.