Anales de Tlatelolco
codex manuscript
The Anales de Tlatelolco (Annals of Tlatelolco) is a codex manuscript written in Nahuatl, using Latin characters, by anonymous Aztec authors. The text has no pictorial content. Although there is an assertion that the text was a copy of one written in 1528 in Tlatelolco, only seven years after the fall of the Aztec Empire, James Lockhart argues that there is no evidence for this early date of composition, based on internal evidence of the text. However, he supports the contention that this is an authentic conquest account, arguing that it was composed about 20 years after the conquest in the 1540s, and contemporaneous with the Cuernavaca censuses. Unlike the Florentine Codex and its account of the conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Annals of Tlatelolco remained in Nahua hands, providing authentic insight into the thoughts and outlook of the newly conquered Nahuas.
Description
The Annales De Tlatelolco are made up of two different manuscripts that are currently being kept at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. The manuscript, formally titled manuscript 22, is written on a traditional bark paper called “amate”. The other one, Manuscript 22bis, however, is written on traditional European paper. Manuscript 22 is divided into six separate notebooks; each of them originally contained two papers front to back with information, meaning each separate notebook has up to four pages of writing.
The document is the only one that contains the day the Aztecs exited Aztlan-Colhuacan, as well as the day of the founding of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Anales de Tlatelolco” is codex manuscript. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Anales, Tlatelolco and codex, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “codex manuscript” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3617899. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1528.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
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- Expand the search: follow Anales de Tlatelolco primary sources, Anales de Tlatelolco archive and Anales research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Anales de Tlatelolco” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.