chalchihuitl (Mdz43r)
chalchihuitl (Mdz43r)
This iconographic example of jade or greenstone (chalchihuitl) is actually a string of three jade beads, two longer ones and a short round one in the middle. They are painted in two tones of green, with some mottling or swirling effects.
Stephanie Wood
The coloring and the mottled look in these stones is very similar to the jade stones in the glyphs in this collection. Compare below, right. What the glyphs offer are the red rings, and the black and white decoration (shine?), and the quadripartite elements around the perimeter (which results in a quincunx if one counts the center).
The color and the swirling effect of chalchihuitl may be one of the things that links it to water in the Nahua perception. Remember, the hieroglyph for water has shells and water droplets (which some see as chalchihuitl gems) splashing off of it. Loic Vauzelle notes that "one of the subsidiary names for Chalchiuhtlicue" is Acueye, which means "She Who Has a Water Skirt," and Vauzelle identifies additional relationships between water and jade. ["Clothes with Metaphorical Names and the Representation of Metaphors in the Costumes of the Aztec Gods," in Katarzyna Mikulska and Jerome A. Offner, Indigenous Graphic Communication Systems (Louisville: University Press of Colorado, 2019), esp. p. 158.]
Stephanie Wood
chalchihuitl
chalchihuitl
Stephanie Wood
1577
Jeff Haskett-Wood
jades, greenstones, green stones, chalchihuites, necklaces, collarea, cozcatl
These two strands of precious green stone show two very different shades of green, but not unusual. The smaller strand appears to be shinier and more brilliant, suggesting that perhaps it was more valuable. Museo Nacional de Historia, Chapultepec Park, Mexico City. Photo by S. Wood, 29 April 2025.
chalchihu(itl), a precious stone, especially a precious green or blue stone, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chalchihuitl
cozca(tl), necklace, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cozcatl-0
Stephanie Wood
Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 10: The People", fol. 39v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/10/folio/39v/images/0 Accessed 10 September 2025
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.”
