Part picture book, part map the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 is an Aztec artifact from 1540. It was painted for the Lords of Cuauhtinchan to show the Spanish their claim to the territory they ruled. The first part starts with the emergence from the lords ancestors from the cave of Chicomoztoc (legendary origin point of the Aztecs and several other tribes) and follows their journey to found the town of Cuauhtinchan. The second part shows the environment around Cuauhtinchan. The map is analyzed extensively in the book
Cave, City, and Eagle’s Nest: An Interpretive Journey through the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 edited by Davíd Carrasco, and Scott Sessions, UNM press 2007. You can also listen to David Carrasco's lecture at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe New Mexico
here. Among other things he explains rediscovering the map in a kitchen drawer of a wealthy patron. Now I return to my monastic cell to further contemplate Mesoamerican Agriculture (unfortunately
Cultivated Landscapes of Middle America on the eve of Conquest has far less interesting maps and a vocabulary that requires a Dictionary close at hand).
Updated to fix the broken picture link 3/11/2023
