macuilxihuitl (Osu11r)

macuilxihuitl (Osu11r)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This simplex glyph for a year (xihuitl) is repeated here five (macuilli) times, perhaps resulting in what we should call a compound glyph. It is found in the Codex Osuna on folio 11 recto (or Image 24). Each year is represented by a circle filled with small mosaic pieces, or tesserae, of turquoise stone. The mosaic consists in this case of ten angular pieces, all about the same size.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

Xihuitl, besides meaning year, also means turquoise, and the visual is a turquoise mosaic and painted a turquoise color. So it has that graphic "syllepsis" (in the terminology of Gordon Whittaker). For some excellent examples of turquoise mosaics from Mexico that are in the British Museum, see Elizabeth M. Carmichael, Turquoise Mosaics from Mexico (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1970), and Colin McEwan et al, Turquoise Mosaics from Mexico (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006). Also, the appendices of the book, Conceptualization of 'Xihuitl' (2008) by Mutsumi Izeki, include a great many objects covered with turquoise tesserae.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Source Manuscript:

Osuna, Codex (Osu)

Date of Manuscript:

1551–1565

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

calendrics

numbers

Syntax:

noun(s)

Writing Features:

simplex or element as logogram

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Numbers, Math

Time, Calendar, Frequency

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

blue (turquoise)

Shapes and Perspectives:

circle(s) (small, often concentric)

horizontal

frontal view

segmented

Keywords:

tiempo, calendarios, años, turquesas, teselas, círculo, redondo

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

macuil(li), five, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/macuilli
xihui(tl), year, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xihuitl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

cinco años

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Library of Congress Online Catalog and the World Digital Library, Osuna Codex, or Painting of the Governor, Mayors, and Rulers of Mexico (Pintura del Gobernador, Alcaldes y Regidores de México), 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: