ayauhcalli (Mdz64r)

ayauhcalli (Mdz64r)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic element for ayauhcalli (perhaps "fog house") shows a building in profile open to the viewer's left. Its T-shaped beams in the doorway are painted turquoise. The building itself, very reminiscent of a calli, is white. Along the top, horizontal plane of the building, there are three pairs of vertical dashes, seemingly representing mist or fog (ayauhtli) and these are also painted turquoise (the color of water).

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The gloss not only explains that this is an "ayauhcalli," or fog-house, but describes it as a mezquita, which was the Spaniards' early term for a teocalli, religious house, drawing from their experience with the religious temples of the Moors in the Reconquest of Iberia. The term ayauhcalli combines ayauhtli (fog) with calli (house or building). The T-shaped entrance to the building, which usually has terracotta-colored wooden beams, here has turquoise beams. The choice of color certainly seems to relate to water, again, and therefore to preciosity and a religious significance. The markings on the top of the building are also the same turquoise-blue, like water. somewhat reminiscent of mist, which is akin to rain quiyahuitl (also spelled quiahuitl).

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

mezquita . non
brada ayauhcali.

Gloss Normalization:

mezquita nombrada ayauhcalli

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)

Date of Manuscript:

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

calendrics

phonetic dimensions

Syntax:

hua (from huahuana, two vertical lines)

noun(s)

Writing Features:

compound fully logographic

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Architecture, Construction, Buildings

Face Paint or Tattoos

Religion (Indigenous)

Time, Calendar, Frequency

Water

Weather, Climate

Wood, wooden things

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood, Xitlali Torres

Colors:

blue (turquoise)

white/neutral

Shapes and Perspectives:

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

inherent/internal/merged

Keywords:

temples, templos, houses, buildings, architecture, religious structures, religious buildings, religious festivals, casas, edificios, arquitectura, santuarios, calendario, fiestas, double-strike sign, double-stroke sign

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

a(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atl
ayauh(tli), fog, mist, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ayauhtli
ayahui(tl), fog, mist, cloud, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ayahuitl
ayahui, to be foggy, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ayahui
quiyahui(tl), rain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/quiyahuitl
cal(li), house or building, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/calli
teocal(li), temple or church, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/teocalli

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

la casa de la niebla

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 64 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 138 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)