Codex Azcatitlan goes on display in Mexico City

The Codex Azcatitlan, a 16th-century Mexican manuscript that recounts Aztec history in pictograms, went on display in Mexico City on Thursday after nearly two centuries in France.

Two folios from the manuscript were shown in a glass case at the National Museum of Anthropology. France's National Library loaned the codex to Mexico to mark 200 years of relations between the two countries, but Mexico wants France to return it permanently.

The codex tells the history of the Aztec civilization from the creation of the empire to its fall during the Spanish conquest. It narrates the migration from Aztlan, the mythical birthplace of Aztec civilization, to Tenochtitlan, the forerunner of Mexico City.

Members of an Indigenous group that has campaigned for the manuscript's restitution attended the opening. Emilia Mendoza of the Hnahnu community told AFP the loan was “a first step” toward the return of books held in other countries.

Mexican Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco said at the inauguration that the exhibition was about “reuniting a population with its collective memory.” He said the pictograms represented Mexico's history and identity.

Mexico has pressed France for years to return the Codex Azcatitlan and other colonial-era cultural objects. Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History said last year that more than 16,200 items had been repatriated from various countries since 2018.

President Claudia Sheinbaum urged French President Emmanuel Macron during his visit to Mexico last year to return the Codex Azcatitlan and the Codex Borbonicus, another important manuscript held in France.

The Codex Azcatitlan was donated to France's National Library in 1898 by the widow of Franco-Mexican collector Eugene Goupil. It had been brought to France about half a century earlier by Joseph Marius Alexis Aubin, a French researcher specialising in Indigenous American cultures.

French institutions say they are the rightful owners of the Codex Azcatitlan and Codex Borbonicus. The Codex Borbonicus is kept at the library of France's National Assembly.