amoxtli (FCbk6f168v)

This is the first book in this collection (as of June 2025) to show a human figure on the page of a book. Interestingly, the page does not show the sign for speech (ilhuia) with opposing scrolls, which in other cases has taken to be a phonetic indicator for day (ilhuitl), suggesting almanac. See the drawings by John Montgomery published by FAMSI, Inc., which group tonalli, ilhuitl, and the two opposing speech scrolls as being semantically and phonetically connected as “ideograms for ‘day,’” which would point to the divinatory calendar, the tonalamatl. Perhaps the sun (tonatiuh, and an indicator for day, tonalli), provides the indicator in the iconography shared here about the divinatory calendar. In contrast with this example, most glyphs or iconography for books of the European type show little marks that suggest alphabetic writing or musical notation, not hieroglyphic writing or painted scenes. See some book examples, below.