Codex with vivid accounts of pre-Hispanic life returns to Mexico from London, goes on display

MEXICO CITY – Three volumes of hand-written, indigenous accounts that vividly describe the history of pre-Hispanic Mexico are on public display in the country's capital after returning to the country from London.

The Chimalpahin codex was long part of the archives of the British and Foreign Bible Society. But Christie's auction house says it facilitated the purchase of the 17th century manuscript by Mexico's National Anthropology and History Institute earlier this year.

The auction house says the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City began publicly displaying the manuscripts Thursday.

Christie's says the manuscripts are written in Nahuatl and Spanish and contain largely unpublished accounts about native life, society and politics. They belonged to the famed library of Don Carlos Siguenza y Gongora, one of the first great intellectuals born in New Spain.