corona (Osu34v)

corona (Osu34v)
Simplex Hieroglyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This painted simplex Nahuatl hieroglyph represents a Spanish royal crown. It is yellow and has a realistic crown shape. It is shown on this page in the manuscript to indicate that the tribute (taxation) assessed for this town was meant for the royal treasury instead of the pockets of an encomendero (a colonist who had a grant to extract tribute in kind and in labor from one or more Indigenous communities).

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The loanword "corona" appears fairly frequently in Nahuatl textual manuscripts, as the attestations show in our Online Nahuatl Dictionary. Many of those attestations, however, refer not to the royal Spanish crown but to the crown of thorns associated with Jesus Christ. One wonders if the use of thorns for bloodletting by Nahuas may have contributed to this fascination with the crown of thorns. Nahuas may have also linked the Spanish crown with the headgear (xiuhhuitzolli) worn by the tlatoani (or tlahtoani, with the glottal stop), their own ruler.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image: 
Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription: 

corona Real

Gloss/Text Normalization: 

corona real

Gloss/Text Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Osuna, Codex (Osu)
Date of Manuscript: 

1551–1565

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Syntax: 
noun(s)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Jewelry, Crowns, or other Adornment
Politics, Power, Governance
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors: 
yellow or golden
Shapes and Perspectives: 
frontal view
Other Cultural Influences: 
Spanish/European
Keywords: 

coronas, metales, colonialismo

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

corona (a loanword from Spanish), crown, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/corona

Image Source: 

Library of Congress Online Catalog and the World Digital Library, Osuna Codex, or Painting of the Governor, Mayors, and Rulers of Mexico, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_07324/. The original is located in the Biblioteca Nacional de España.

Image Source, Rights: 

"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." But please cite the Biblioteca Nacional de España and this Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs if you use any of these images here or refer to the content on this page, providing the URL

Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: 

rey (Chav1)

Almoyahuacan (Chav8)

Apanecatl (MH597r)

Moteuczoma Ilhuicamina (TR31v)

tlatoani (Osu34r)