So here is a question that has been cast away and lost in my brain for a few months:

Why does The Vatican, a private organized corporation, own the Mesoamerican manuscript known as the Codex Borgia?

Codex Borgia was created by indigenous Mexicans, before the 1800’s and it should have never been taken out of Mexico by imperialists or other intellectual property thieves. The Codex Borgia belongs to no one but Mexico’s “historical heritage.”

Let’s take a look at how Spain won a court case over a U.S corporation, successfully gaining ownership of over $500 million dollars’ worth of sunken treasure, all because they claimed the treasure as part of Spain’s historical heritage.

Now back in 2007, Odyssey, a marine exploration company, found 17 tons of gold coins that was resting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, near Portugal since 1804.

Spain, after hearing about the discovery alleged the gold as theirs, saying that it belonged to them ever since the ship Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes landed at its eventual destination at 20,000 leagues under the sea. Spain proceeds to sue the U.S. Corporation to reclaim proper ownership of their long lost gold. But who wouldn’t sue over gold?

Fast forward to 2012; U.S. Federal courts side with the Spanish.

The courts ruled that the gold, still after all these years, did belong to Spain. Spain won its case for the gold by claiming the gold was part of the country’s national heritage.

See, Spain wasn’t just in it for the money, you see. These gold coins belonged in Spain’s national museums, not some corporation’s coffers.

“This is history. We bear witness to that fateful day 200 years ago,” Spanish Ambassador Jorge Dezcallar de Mazar said. “This is not money. This is historical heritage.”

In much the same way the Spanish Ambassador easily claims 17 tons of gold as an issue of historical heritage for Spain, I claim that a ritual and divinatory manuscript made of 32 sheets of folded animal skin found in 1805, should be returned to Mexico as soon as possible, as it is an issue of very important historical heritage to Mexico and all of its children.

The Codex Borgia was found in 1805 at a very foreign domicile in Italy.

Some might say the Codex Borgia was shipwrecked and far from home when it was found in some dead guy’s house. The dead guy’s name was Cardinal Stefano Borgia.

And now, 207 years later, the Codex Borgia sits behind twitchy lawyers and locked doors at a very precise location: The Vatican.

Unlike the price of gold, the price of folded animal skin hasn’t inflated at all since 1805. So, since we’re not talking about 17 tons of gold, we can just get on with the very elegant and very formal ceremonies of The Vatican returning the Codex to its rightful owner, Mexico, after claiming the manuscript as theirs for the past 207 years.

My posthumous question to Cardinal Borgia is why he believed he was the rightful owner of the manuscript?

Who made the Catholics king of the Aztec Codices?