amatl (Mdz23r)
This element for paper (amatl) has been digitally carved from compound glyph that represents the place name, Amacoztitlan. It is a square piece of yellow paper.
Stephanie Wood
This glyph for amatl is a square piece of paper, unlike the rolls of white paper with ties that are more standard in the Codex Mendoza. Thus, its color and shape are both worth noting. Today, one can purchase rectangles of amatl, and they come in multiple colors including a natural, undyed color, which can also be brown, but most early amatl was either a lighter color naturally or was whitewashed. Here's a sample page from the sixteenth-century Codex Boturini, one that was not whitewashed.
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
papers
ama(tl), paper, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/amatl
paper
el papel de amate
Stephanie Wood
Codex Mendoza, folio 23 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 56 of 188.
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).