eztetl (FCbk11f209v)

This compound hieroglyph features a bloodstone (eztetl). It is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the text near the image in the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss, per se. This example shows a stone (tetl) that is shaped like a potato, made three-dimensional with shading, a European artistic innovation for Nahua tlacuilos. The bloodstone, which is called this because of being “mottled like blood” (in the Anderson and Dibble translation), actually shows blood dripping down the outside of the stone in two places rather than having spots. The representation of the blood does not have the stylistics of earlier hieroglyphs of liquids, but looks more like drops of blood that might be drawn by a European artist, such as on a painting of Christ. This is true, too, of the way the general shape of stone appears, very unlike early hieroglyphs of stones, which have wavy diagonal lines and curling ends. Putting the stone in a landscape setting also reflects European artistic influences.