centzontli (Osu2r)

This is a black and white line drawing of a simplex glyph for the notation centzontli (four hundred). It looks much like a tree here, but sometimes it looks like a bundle of hair (tzontli), feather vanes or barbs, grass blades, or sticks, often small things that were conceivably counted in four hundreds. Here, the centzontli is a counter for the number of loads of lime to be used in construction. The fuller context shows that loads were wrapped (apparently in white cloth) and tied in two places. The full context also shows that an additional ninety loads were also required in tribute. The extra ninety are enumerated as four twenties, with each twenty being a flag, and ten dots, shown as two strings of five each. These are like math equations. According to the Spanish-language text on this page, a judge of the high court (Audiencia), Dr. Zorita, ordered this tribute of 490 loads of lime.