caxitl (FCbk6f170v)

caxitl (FCbk6f170v)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic example, featuring a cup or bowl (caxitl) is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making potential comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the keywords chosen by the team behind the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss. This example shows a vessel with two parts, shaped something like an hour glass, connected and narrowest in the middle. Both parts flare out. The lower part is smaller than the upper one. This was one of five items that were given to a baby girl at the time of her baptism, according to the companion text.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

Examples of hieroglyphs for caxitl include vessels like this one (as in Caxtentzon) and like a bowl (in the Codex Mendoza). In some examples from Huexotzinco, the caxitl can be a crescent, as it appears in Tencax and when it serves as a phonetic indicator for caxtolli (the number 15). Another common word for a vessel is xicalli (jícara in contemporary Mexican Spanish). Further study of these two vessels could prove fruitful.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Florentine/Florentinus, Codex (FC)

Date of Manuscript:

1577

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Syntax:

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Beverages

Containers, Dishes, Eating Utensils

Food, Eating, Cooking

Stones, Rocks, Lapidary, Masonry

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

black & white drawing (no color)

Shapes and Perspectives:

frontal view

Keywords:

vaso, vasos, taza, tazas, cuenco, cuencos, recipiente

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

caxi(tl), a vessel such as a cup or bowl, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/caxitl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

el cajete

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 6: Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy", fol. 170v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/6/folio/170v/images/0. Accessed 7 July 2025.

Image Source, Rights:

Images of the digitized Florentine Codex are made available under the following Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International). For print-publication quality photos, please contact the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana ([email protected]). The Library of Congress has also published this manuscript, using the images of the World Digital Library copy. “The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright or other restrictions in the World Digital Library Collection. Absent any such restrictions, these materials are free to use and reuse.”

Historical Contextualizing Image: