BELIZE WAS A SMALL COUNTRY AND LIKE many Belizeans Simmo was a frequent visitor to neighbouring Guatemala and Mexico. Inevitably, over the years, he developed an interest in archaeology and by extension the Conquest of the pre-Columbian civilisations.
Though he was no expert he realised the glyphs were not the kind he was used to seeing in the local museum or at the different archaeological sites in Belize, one of which was Altun Ha, just a few kilometres from his home outside Belize City.
He had often taken visitors to Altun Ha and was familiar with the Maya writing system that decorated the facades of many of its buildings. Although it was smaller than other sites in the country, it consisted of two main plazas surrounded by more than a dozen pyramids and residential structures. Hundreds of other buildings, still covered by the jungle, lay untouched as they had for hundreds of years waiting for archaeologists with the financial means to explore.
After comparing the illustrations in the ancient book to the photos in those he had just bought, he scratched his head disappointedly and turned his attention to the handwritten texts, part of which he recognised as old Spanish and very difficult to follow.
As he turned the pages an envelope fell to the floor. He picked it up, it was addressed to whom it may concern. Inside was a letter written by Wallace, it was brief, announcing that the book had been given to him in exchange for services rendered by the family from whom he had bought the land surrounding his villa, an old family descended from English settlers that had been present in 1862, when Belize, then known as British Honduras, was declared a British crown colony.
The book had been handed down for safekeeping from generation to generation, a family heirloom. They had claimed to be descended from the English privateers who had used the coast as their base to raid the Spanish treasure fleets sailing from the New World to Spain in the early 17th century.
Over the centuries, like most families in Belize, they became part of that conflux of humanity, an extraordinary melting pot, where their English, Spanish, African and more recently Indian and Chinese ancestors, met and mingled with the descendants of the Maya, giving many that undefinable appearance.
Wallace briefly noted that after acquiring visas to the US with his help, the family had vanished into the masses of recent arrivals somewhere in the vast urban sprawl of New York City and its outlying districts.
The book, dated from 1579 according to Wallace, was written in two texts, both in the Roman alphabet, Spanish and another language, which Simmo did not recognise. In addition were the ideographic signs. It vaguely recalled a codex, however, rather than the screen-folded Mayan codicies it was bound like an old but conventional book.
It was evidently not a facsimile, he had seen one of those in the Belize Museum. This book was worn, not damaged, but simply worn at the edges, by time and many hands.
He Googled ‘codex’ and discovered numerous such texts existed, a little more research confirmed it could be of value, and if it really was authentic, perhaps of great value. There was however a downside, it appeared there existed a number of famous forgeries to which were regularly added new ‘discoveries’.
With further search and cross referencing he came to the conclusion the other language was Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, which seemed strange as Belize was far from the region in Mexico where that language had been and was still spoken.
Simmo couldn’t help asking himself about Wallace’s intentions, he had evidently realised the book’s value, perhaps not its worth in dollars and cents, but its possible historical value.
But then there was another question, that of the other cases in the Freeport warehouse, almost certainly paintings, and where they could they have come from. Wallace had not been a rich man in the sense he could have accumulated an art collection.
Who else could be interested in such treasure?
He returned to Google and came across a report on a recent Sotheby’s sale of pre-Columbian art. There was the picture of a vase with the words ‘type codex’, it was just 12 centimetres high, and was auctioned for 100,000 euros. He continued his search, there existed many different types of codices certain of which were described as priceless.
Not only would it be difficult to sell, it would certainly be seen as a national cultural treasure by Belize or other countries that could make claims, and would require a very wealthy buyer.
Legally antiquities found in Mesoamerica should be declared to the local authorities by the finders, however the codex was not an archaeological discovery, but a possession of the deceased’s family, and for many generations.
After reinspecting the manuscript, for that is what it was, a book written and illustrated by hand, he pursued his search, following the links to museums and historical libraries and learned institutions.
Soon he discovered images of the Florentine Codex at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, a world famous library in Florence, Italy, and was astonished by the remarkable similarities with the manuscript now in his possession. Then, after downloading an illustrated publication of the codex from Texas University, he spent the following couple of hours studying the extraordinary work and came to the conclusion the manuscript in his possession was either a real addendum to the work produced by the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagun or a very clever forgery.
If the Wallace codex, as he now called it in his mind, was the real thing it could be worth millions, and if he could find a buyer the proceeds would transform his now very anaemic retirement plan into one that would enable him to live in the kind of style that had eluded him during his long years in the grubby tropical backwater that now threatened to make him its prisoner.
He decided to eat in the hotel restaurant with its magnificent view over the lake, but he found it difficult to concentrate on anything but the codex he had left in the safebox of his room. As he ate different ideas raced through his mind mixed with a re-run of his visit to the Freeport. Looking out at the lake he took a breath and paused, making an effort to reorganise his thoughts, at that precise moment a large motor yacht passed in the middle distance, suddenly Sir Patrick Kennedy sprung to mind, a rich banker, who had visited Belize a couple of years earlier aboard his yacht. Amongst Kennedy’s friends was a Spanish archaeologist and a Parisian fine arts dealer, an Englishman, or was he Irish?
He pulled out his phone and started to run through his contacts, he stopped at Scott Fitznorman of Asia Galleries in Paris. He looked at his watch, it was just after seven.
He called for the check and returned to his room where he called Scott Fitznorman, who to his relief replied.
‘Hello Mister Fitznorman,’ he commenced, preferring a formal approach to start with, ‘This is Barry Simmonds of Young & Simmonds Belize Attorneys, perhaps you remember us from your visit to Belize City with Sir Patrick Kennedy, about eighteen months ago,’ he hesitated, then for good measure added, ‘our firm introduced Sir Patrick to Audrey Joy Grant, she’s the governor of the Belize Central Bank.’
It was a bit of an exaggeration in the sense Simmo had introduced Pat Kennedy at a crowded Independence Day cocktail.
‘Yes, of course Barry, I remember we met at the Radisson,’ Fitznorman replied. He was a well-known international art dealer and remembering names and faces was part of his business.
Simmo was relieved though he was not naïve. ‘I’m calling from Geneva on behalf of a client.’
‘I see, how can I be of help?’
It wasn’t the first time a lawyer called him on behalf of a real or pretended client about an object d’art.
‘Are you familiar with the Florentine Codex?’
‘Yes of course.’
‘Good, well I won’t go into details over the phone. Where can we meet?’
‘Well, I’m afraid I’m in Spain at the moment. San Sebastian. I’m here for an ethnic art fair until the end of the week.’
‘I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon,’ announced Simmonds, recalling San Sebastian was in the north of the country, in the Basque Country, a largish city, a few hours drive from Madrid.
‘I see, I’m staying at Hotel de Londres y de Inglaterra, do you need a room?’
‘Yes, if you could manage that for me. One other thing, this is strictly between us, you know, lawyers confidentiality.’
‘You can count on me,’ replied Fitznorman intrigued by Simmonds who he remembered being a rather amusing, slightly worn expatriate, rather out of place in Belize, which had struck him as a steaming and threatening backwater.
Simmo booked a seat on the early Iberia flight that left at 7:10 and arrived in Madrid two hours later. It was perfect, the four hour drive to San Sebastian meant he would arrive sometime in the early afternoon if all went well.
He passed a restless night and was awake at five and as drank his coffee he continued to compare his manuscript with the Texas University publication which described the twelve books of the Florentine Codex. It was, however, a necessarily brief description as the original, in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana was made up of three books and totalled of 3,120 pages.
Compiled between 1576 and 1577, the codex was the work of one Bernardino de Sahagun, who had arrived in Mexico in 1529. The books were transcribed from accounts of life in Mexico prior to the Conquest, recounted by different Aztec people, high ranking individuals who had witnessed the collapse of Moctezuma’s empire and the Spanish conquest. In 1569 after Bernardino reorganized and corrected the different accounts, they were bound into books and sent to Madrid, where it was believed the codex was offered as a gift of Philip II of Spain to the Grand Duke of Tuscany in around 1589.
Simmo then noted the existence of another manuscript from that period, it dated from around 1580 and was kept in the collection of the Royal Academy in Madrid. Known as the Tolosa Codex, it was acquired from the Franciscan Convent of Tolosa in Navarre in 1873.
During the flight to Madrid, thanks to the books he had bought in Geneva, he swotted up on the history of the Conquista and learnt more of Bernardino who had arrived at Veracruz on the Caribbean coast at the age of 29. He lived in Mexico to what was a great age in those times, more than 90 years old, never returning to Spain.
Sahagun’s work was considered to be one of the most outstanding ethnographic documents of pre-Columbian Mexico, since it provided detailed accounts of Mexican life during the 15th and 16th centuries, just before the cataclysmic collapse of the Aztec world, that brought about the destruction of its political system, and the extinction of most of its traditions and beliefs.
Beyond the chronicle of the Conquest, seen from an Aztec standpoint, it described the existence of botanical gardens and zoos in Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, as well as in other cities of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. It was the only surviving account of life in Mexico, as told by Aztecs, told just ten years after Cortes landed in Veracruz, the start of the conquest, which was ended with the death of Moctezuma II, on June 29, 1521, and fall of Tenochtitlan, in the summer of 1522, when the besieged defenders, plagued by smallpox and dysentery, starving and without fresh water, were finally forced into submission on August 13.
The Conquistadors established their new capital, now Mexico City, in 1521, on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, a city of more than 400,000 with its outlying areas, comparable to the largest European cities of that time, the capital of an empire of 15 million people.
At the time of the Conquest, the library of Tenochtitlan held thousands of written works. Tragically, the Spanish destroyed almost all of the library’s codices, long scrolls folded into books, obliterating forever the Aztec traditions and beliefs in the Spanish king’s determination to convert his new subjects to Christianity. Fewer than 20 codices survived.
Simmo was fascinated to learn that hyperspectral scanning of a Mayan codex held in the Bodleian Library by researchers at Oxford University had revealed unknown images hidden beneath a layer of plaster and gesso, a series of figures laid out like a comic strip.
The Codex, acquired from John Selden in the 17th century, measured five metres in length, written on deer skin, and folded like an accordion into a book.
In the 1950s, researchers scraped off a small quantity of paint, revealing a layer of images that had been painted over indicating the support had been reused. To avoid further damage to the precious document, the investigation was abandoned until new technology was developed in the form of hyperspectral imaging which revealed pictures executed with red, orange and yellow pigments. A total of 27 human figures wearing head dresses and carrying sticks or spears were identified on just one page.
It confirmed the document was a palimpsest, that is a recycled support, and what was more astonishing was the text did not match that of other early manuscripts used in Mesoamerica before the Conquest.
Further, Simmo learnt the Mayan language was neither Mixtec, Nahuatl, nor Zapotec, but a separate family, which continued to be widely spoken since the Maya resisted the Conquistadors almost two centuries, longer than the Aztecs and the Incas.
The flight was otherwise uneventful and on time and when Simmo landed in Madrid he was somewhat wiser as to the language and history of the region in which he had lived for almost three decades.
After de-planing he took the Schengen passport control line, where looking straight ahead he acted as nonchalantly as possible, he was in luck, he passed unchallenged and five minutes later he was in the arrivals hall hanging tightly onto his briefcase and the two carry-ons allowed for business class travellers. His precaution was justified considering he was carry the valuable codex as well as an unusually large sum of cash.
He headed directly for the Hertz counter where he rented a comfortable SEAT Ateca for the four hour drive to San Sebastian.