The Mapas Project has as its focus the digitization and study of colonial Mesoamerican pictorial manuscripts. The term "mapa" was used loosely in New Spain to refer to pictorials that may or may not have had a cartographic dimension, but often showed the territories or landscapes of indigenous communities.
Because it is our aim to expand the number of manuscripts under study at this site, archives and museums are welcomed to offer additional manuscripts for incorporation. It is our hope that colleagues around the world will also offer their comments, alternative transcriptions, suggested translations, and interpretations, and that these will be incorporated, periodically, into these pages.
The Mapas Project utilizes a online distance research environment (DRE) developed by the Wired Humanities and Feminist Humanities Projects of the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon to encourage and facilitate international collaboration among scholars, teachers, and interested communities.