centzontli (CST21)
This painting of the notation for the number 400 (centzontli) shows a bird’s eye view of a spiral (perhaps cen-) with what appears to be a frontal view of a vertical, leafless tree (tzontli) standing on top. This upper portion can represent the notation centzontli or tzontli (also 400) on its own. The tzontli can be a hank of hair, a group of sticks, a clump of grass blades, or a leafless tree.
Stephanie Wood
The cen- start to the term suggests “entirely” or “all of it,” and perhaps this is what the spiral glyph represents visually here. Is this a Mixtec rendering of centzontli? For more on the Codex Sierra, see Kevin Terraciano’s study (2021).
Stephanie Wood
1550–1564
Jeff Haskett-Wood
números, notaciones, cuatrocientos, espirales, árboles
centzon(tli), four hundred or large clump of grasses or lock of hair, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/centzontli-0
cen-, one entire, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cen
tzon(tli), head, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzontli
cuatrocientos
Stephanie Wood
Códice Sierra-Texupan, plate 21, page dated 1558. Origin: Santa Catalina Texupan, Mixteca Alta, State of Oaxaca. Kevin Terraciano has published an outstanding study of this manuscript (Codex Sierra, 2021), and in his book he refers to alphabetic and “pictorial” writing, not hieroglyphic writing. We are still counting some of the imagery from this source as hieroglyphic writing, but we are also including examples of “iconography” where the images verge on European style illustrations or scenes showing activities. We have this iconography category so that such images can be fruitfully compared with hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphic writing was evolving as a result of the influence of European illustrations, and even alphabetic writing impacted it.
https://bidilaf.buap.mx/objeto.xql?id=48281&busqueda=Texupan&action=search
The Biblioteca Digital Lafragua of the Biblioteca Histórica José María Lafragua in Puebla, Mexico, publishes this Códice Sierra-Texupan, 1550–1564 (62pp., 30.7 x 21.8 cm.), referring to it as being in the “Public Domain.” This image is published here under a Creative Commons license, asking that you cite the Biblioteca Digital Lafragua and this Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs.
