Being unable to make a personal examination of the original, I prepared from my enlarged black drawings, above mentioned, another full set including the figures and all glyphs or other parts showing any suggestions of color. Upon these I prepared a list of nearly 200 questions covering every detail, together with certain general specifications, and had the whole made the subject of a careful and exhaustive comparison with the original at the Bibliothèque Nationale. This report, when duly returned with the various details set out, with the various colors shown in their exact tints by water-colors, and with a special analysis of the question of the fading of the colors, was again checked and verified by the evidence of the three editions.
In doubtful questions arising from faded colors, I have sought to show the condition of the original as it exists today. In the solid red backgrounds and other places I have aimed to show as far as possible what the Codex looked like when fresh.
This question as to what all the colors in detail were when fresh, I do not feel that I have quite solved. The following palette scheme seems to me about as near as the data permit us to formulate.
A permanent black, being the parts reproduced in black in the present edition.
A brick-red, tinged with crimson, used for backgrounds, red numerals, and probably elsewhere. This we may call unfading red.
A genuine brown, as on the animals, pages 5-a, 8-a; perhaps also elsewhere as lining ornament.
A pale pink as flesh color on the human figures.
A blue, as on the possible katun number series on pages 23 and 24.
A turquoise-green, with varying amounts of blue tinge, on the spotted figures and in the numeral columns of pages 15 to 18; also, with somewhat less of the blue, for the “water” bands on pages 21 to 24.
The above colors are all definite and positive.