acolli (Mdz17v)

acolli (Mdz17v)
Element from a Compound

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This element, acolli (shoulder but also bend, as in river bend) has been carved from the compound sign for the place name, Acolnahuac.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The presence of the bone may intend to call attention to the shoulder (acolli) site of this arm. This arm is not adorned the way some other signs for acolli appear in this collection. Gordon Whittaker calls "acol" a pseudo-logogram, for in place names it is not literally about a shoulder but provides the phonetics for "a" (water) and "col" (bend, or curve), referring to "the curve of the lakeshore." [See Whittaker, Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs, 2021, 180.]

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Syntax: 
noun(s)
Writing Features: 
simplex or element as logogram
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Anatomy, human body parts
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Colors: 
orange/terracotta
white/neutral
Shapes and Perspectives: 
bent
Keywords: 

arms, hands, bones

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

acol(li), shoulder, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/acolli
a(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atl
coltic, curved, bent, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/coltic
col(li), something bent or twisted, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/colli-1

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 17 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 45 of 188.

Image Source, Rights: 

The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).

See Also: 

Acolnahuac (Mdz17v)