chipolcozcatl (FCbk8f34r)

chipolcozcatl (FCbk8f34r)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic example, featuring a shell necklace (chipolcozcatl), 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. This contextualizing image shows a necklace worn by a warrior (yaoquizqui), who also carries a shield (chimalli), an obsidian-blade embedded club (macuahuitl), and his hairstyle is a temillotl--all these terms come from the keywording of the DFC, not from glosses. The shells and their tie are all white. The shells have quite a swirl in them, and swirls were greatly valued. The shell may be from a snail or some type of marine shell. Several dictionaries have latched onto the translation of seashell necklace.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

It seems more likely that the context of central Mexico with the lakes that snails on the shore would be what more people owned. But marine products were highly prized for their rarity and the trouble and cost of bringing them inland. In the Templo Mayor, various marine products have been discovered as special offerings, for example, in a study published in the Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad of no. 78 (2007), detailing the discoveries in Ofrenda 107. Another iconographic example of the chipolcozcatl in this digital collection appears below, along with a shell associated with the personal name Chipol.

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:

Gender (male)

Jewelry, Crowns, or other Adornment

Shells

War or Conflict

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

black & white drawing (no color)

Shapes and Perspectives:

frontal view

spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling

Keywords:

caracol, caparazón, caparazones, productos marinos, collares

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

chipolcozca(tl), a snail-shell necklace, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chipolcozcatl
cozca(tl), necklace, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cozcatl-0
chipol(li), snail shells, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chipolli

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

el collar de caracoles

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 8: Kings and Lords", fol. 34r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/8/folio/34r/images/0 Accessed 17 August 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: