Dr. Penny Morrill Collection

Photo Credit: Rare Books Division, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah

The University of Maryland Libraries have received an important gift from Dr. Penny Morrill, a recent graduate of the Department of Art History and Archeology. While pursuing her studies, Penny recognized a need in the collection for examples of Pre-Columbian codices, manuscripts which preserve both secular and religious information. Secular manuscripts include histories, genealogies, tax and tribute accounts and maps; and religious codices include cosmological and mythical histories, manuals for divination, and the performance of rituals and records of astronomical and calendrical cycles.

Penny has given four codex facsimilies to the libraries--Cospi, Vaticano-B, Fejervary-Meyer, and Codice de Xicotepec--in honor of her doctoral dissertation committee, which included Dr. Arthur K. Wheelock, Dr. Regina Harrison, Dr. John Carlson, Dr. Samuel Edgerton, Dr. J. Douglas Farquhar, and Dr. Anthony Colantuono. Her gift will be greatly appreciated by all faculty and students doing research in this important subject area.

The lavishly illustrated codices will be held in the Rare Book collection at Hornbake Library.