Pictograms are first written accounts of earthquakes in pre-Hispanic
Mexico

Date:
August 25, 2021
Source:
Seismological Society of America
Summary:
The Codex Telleriano Remensis, created in the 16th century in
Mexico, depicts earthquakes in pictograms that are the first
written evidence of earthquakes in the Americas in pre-Hispanic
times, according to a pair of researchers who have systematically
studied the country's historical earthquakes.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
The Codex Telleriano Remensis, created in the 16th century in Mexico,
depicts earthquakes in pictograms that are the first written evidence of earthquakes in the Americas in pre-Hispanic times, according to a pair
of researchers who have systematically studied the country's historical earthquakes.


========================================================================== Gerardo Sua'rez of the Universidad Nacional Auto'noma de Me'xico and
Virginia Garci'a-Acosta of the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios
Superiores en Antropologi'a Social studied pictograms reporting 12
earthquakes in the Telleriano-Remensis, occurring between 1460 and 1542.

The pictograms offer little information on the location, size or damage
caused by the earthquakes, the authors note in the journal Seismological Research Letters. But along with other historical accounts found in
annals written after the Spanish conquest, they extend the region's
seismic history back into the 15th century.

"It is not surprising that pre Hispanic records exist describing
earthquakes for two reasons," said Sua'rez. "Earthquakes are frequent
in this country and, secondly, earthquakes had a profound meaning
in the cosmological view of the original inhabitants of what is now
Mexico." Mesoamerican civilizations viewed the universe as cyclical,
with successive eras or "suns" destroyed by floods, wind, fire and other phenomena before the appearance of a new sun. The current and fifth "sun, "according to this view, will be destroyed by earthquakes.

Sua'rez and Garci'a-Acosta began studying historical earthquakes in
Mexico after the devastating magnitude 8.0 Mexico City earthquake in
1985, eventually publishing their findings in the book Los sismos en la historia de Me'xico.

"However, we had not tackled the pictographic representation of
earthquakes," said Sua'rez. "We recently embarked on a more detailed study
of this pictographic representation and other texts written immediately
after the Spanish conquest." Codex writing, a pre-Hispanic system of
symbols and colors, was done by trained specialists called tlacuilos
(in the original Nahuatl language, "those who write painting"). While
many codices were burned as pagan objects after the Spanish conquest,
some survived and the pictographic style was used in new codices up into
the 18th century.



==========================================================================
The Codex Telleriano-Remensis is written on European paper, with
explanations or "glosses" written in Latin, Spanish and sometimes Italian
by later commentators alongside the symbols.

Earthquakes, called tlalollin in the Nahuatl language, are represented
by two signs: ollin (movement) and tlalli (earth). Ollin is a glyph
consisting of four helices and a central eye or circle. Tlalli is a glyph consisting of one or several layers filled with dots and different colors.

In the Telleriano-Remensis, there are other modifications of the
earthquake glyphs, but their meanings are not clear to scholars. "However,
the consensus is that the various representations probably do have a
meaning," Sua'rez said.

"Drawing codices was a strict discipline not open to artistic whims of
the people trained to do it, the tlacuilos. We are hopeful that in the
future an unknown codex or document may appear that may enlighten us in
this respect." Sua'rez and Garci'a-Acosta note that other annals offer information that complements the codex earthquake drawings, perhaps
filling in more details about the impacts and locations of specific earthquakes. For example, a historical account by the Franciscan friar
Juan de Torquemada describes a 1496 earthquake that shook three mountains
in "Xochitepec province, along the coast" and caused landslides in an
area inhabited by the Yope people.

The site is within the Guerrero seismic gap, a region of relative seismic
quiet along the subduction zone in southern Mexico. The historical
descriptions suggest that the 1496 earthquake might have been a very
large earthquake of magnitude 8.0 or larger within the gap. There have
been no recorded earthquakes of that magnitude in the gap since 1845.

The historical evidence "really does not change our view of the seismic potential of that region in southern Mexico," Sua'rez explained. "It
simply adds additional evidence that great earthquakes have occurred in
this segment of the subduction zone before, and the absence of these major earthquakes for several years should not be considered as though this
region is aseismic." The researchers plan to study other codices that are
not as well-known as the Telleriano-Remensis, but have so far been unable
to access the libraries that hold them due to COVID-19 restrictions.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
Seismological_Society_of_America. Note: Content may be edited for style
and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Gerardo Sua'rez, Virginia Garci'a-Acosta. The First Written
Accounts of
Pre-Hispanic Earthquakes in the Americas. Seismological Research
Letters, 2021; DOI: 10.1785/0220210161 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210825143043.htm

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