“What do you think is inside?” Summer asked.
Madero shook his head. “There’s no telling. Once we get it back to my lab in Veracruz, we can X-ray it, then remove the latex and open it.”
Dirk grinned. “I still say it’s some musty cigars.”
“Perhaps.” Madero set the box down with reverence. “But I think it could contain something much more significant.”
He picked up the toothbrush and lightly scrubbed the center of the lid, gradually revealing a bright green circular pattern. Inlaid stones of green and blue were impressed into the design. The wing of a bird began to take shape.
“The Aztecs incorporated animals into much of their artwork,” Madero said. “Eagles and jaguars were popular motifs, representing the warrior classes.”
Summer studied the expanding image. “It’s a bird of some sort, but I don’t think it’s an eagle. Were other birds used symbolically?”
“Yes, especially exotic tropical birds. Their plumage was highly valued, more so than gold. The emperor and other nobility would commission elaborate headdresses from feathers of a green jungle bird called the quetzal. Then there is Huitzilopochtli. He was the ancestral deity of the Aztecs, perhaps their most important god. He was a patron of war but also of their home of Tenochtitlan. He was the guiding force for the Mexica in their original migration from Aztlán to Tenochtitlan—what is now Mexico City.”
“And he was associated with a bird?” Summer asked.
“Yes, a blue hummingbird. The image was typically reserved for items of the ruling class.”
Madero blew away the loosened debris and held the box toward Summer. She could now see the stones were pieces of jade and turquoise. They were joined by inlaid bone and pyrite in the shape of a bird in flight. There was no mistaking the animal’s stubby wings and long, thin bill.
It was a blue hummingbird.
12
All eyes were focused on the now cleaned ceramic box. Perched on a steel table in a lab adjacent to Dr. Madero’s college office, its secrets beckoned under a bank of fluorescent lights.
Madero treated the lid’s sealed edges with a solvent, then heated the seams with a small hair dryer. The combined effects softened the natural latex and loosened its bond. Madero tested the gooey material with a plastic putty knife.
“It’s quite sticky,” he said. “I think it will open right up.”
Grasping the lid with a gloved hand, he gave it a gentle tug. The lid popped right off.
Standing on either side of Madero, Dirk and Summer leaned close. A small piece of green felt blanketed a square object inside. Madero pulled away the felt, revealing a tablet of coarse pages.
“It looks like a small book,” Summer said.
Madero’s eyes were as wide as platters. Using tweezers, he opened the blank top page, revealing a colorful cartoon-like image of several warriors carrying spears and shields.
“Not simply a book.” Madero’s voice quivered with excitement. “A codex.”
Summer was familiar with the Mayan and Aztec codices, pictographic manuscripts that recorded their culture and history, but she had never seen one in person. She was surprised when Madero pulled up the first page and the subsequent ones unfolded in accordion fashion. Each contained a pictorial image with multiple glyphic signs.
“Is it Mayan?” Dirk asked.
“No, classic Nahuatl.”
Summer frowned. “Nahuatl?”
“The language of the Mexica, or Aztecs. I recognize the glyphs as classic Nahuatl symbols.”
“Can you decipher it?”
Madero unfurled the codex across the table, counting twenty panels. He photographed each panel first and then carefully studied the images. He kept his thoughts to himself as he moved from one panel to the next. The early panels depicted a battle, while later ones showed men carrying a large object. After several minutes, Madero looked up.
“It seems to describe a local conflict. An account of the battle was recorded in stone, which was split in two and carried away for some reason.” He shook his head. “I must profess to being a little out of my element here. A colleague of mine, Professor Miguel Torres, is an expert in Nahuatl. Let me see if he is available.”
Madero returned a moment later, trailed by two men.