Axayacatl (Mdz10r)

Axayacatl (Mdz10r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph stands for the personal name Axayacatl. It consists of a stream of water (atl) and a face (xayacatl). The face is that of a male, with terracotta-color skin and black hair. He is simply a head, shown in profile, facing to the viewer's right. We know that he is male because of his haircut (with bangs and the rest just below the ears). Also, the context image shows him wearing the men's cape and a sitting posture that has his knees up under his chin.

The water starts flowing at the top of the man's forehead and streams down his face. Two droplets/beads (white) and one turbinate shell (also white) come off the water, and the water is painted a turquoise blue. This is such a small sample of water, it does not have the black lines of current.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

Axayacatl (or Axayacatzin, with the reverential suffix -tzin) was a late fifteenth-century ruler of Mexico-Tenochtitlan who expanded the empire considerably. His father was Huehue Tezozomoctli. He bore two sons, Moteuczoma Xocoyotl and Macuilmalinaltzin. ]See the Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 2, 96–97.]

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

axayacaçi

Gloss Normalization: 

Axayacatzin (or Axayacatl)

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
Syntax: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
Keywords: 

water, agua, faces, caras, rulers, leaders, líderes, gobernantes

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 
Additional Scholars' Interpretations: 

"Face of Water" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. .1, p. 233)

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 10 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 30 of 188.

Image Source, Rights: 

Original manuscript is held by the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1; used here with the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0)

Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: