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MS. Arch. Selden. A. 72 (3)

Summary Catalogue no.: 3207

Selden Roll

Rollo Selden

Roll of the New Fire

Rollo del fuego nuevo

Contents

'The Selden Roll' or 'The Roll of the New Fire': Mexican pictorial roll or 'tiras'

Describes the founding of an unidentified city-state probably in the Coixtlahuaca region. "It features the descent of the culture hero Lord 9 Wind [the Mixtec equivalent of the Aztec Quetzalcoatl] from the heavens and through the earth, to emerge via Chicomóztoc [a mythical place of emergence] into the mundane world. Priests carry his cult bundle and implements of rule past several places until they arrive at a still-unidentified but important location. While others bring rain and groundwater to the area, the priests place 9 Wind's cult bundle, drill a new fire, and found a polity." (Boone, 2000, p. 152). For a fuller description see ibid., pp. 152-161 and Jansen and Jiménez (2017).

Language(s): No linguistic content

Physical Description

Form: roll
Support: native paper (amatl)
Dimensions (roll): 380 × 3500 mm.

Decoration

Coloured pictures.

History

Origin: 16th century, first half (post-Columbian) ; Mixtec (modern Mexico)

Provenance and Acquisition

"All existing tiras are thought to date from the Early Colonial period in the sixteenth century. Although the Selden Roll contains no decidedly European imagery, its graphic style is thought to represent a colonial degeneration of the tighter pre-Columbian line and form." (Boone 2001)

John Selden, 1584–1654. Earlier provenance not known.

Acquired by the Bodleian in 1659

Record Sources

Summary description based on published literature as cited. Previously described in the Summary Catalogue.
Summary Catalogue, Vol. 2 Part 1, p. 598

Availability

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Digital Images

Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)
Digital Bodleian (7 images from 35mm slides)

Bibliography

    Maarten Jansen and Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez, Time and the Ancestors (Brill, 2017), ch. 5
    Elizabeth Hill Boon, 'Selden Roll', in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures, ed. Dav́d Carrasco (Oxford, 2001)
    Elizabeth Hill Boone, Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztecs and Mixtecs (Austin, Tex., 2000)
    The Selden Roll: An Ancient Mexican Picture Manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, commentary by Cottie Burland (Berlin, 1955)

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2025-04-22: Sebastian Dows-Miller. Converted binding measurements from cm to mm.