macuilxihuitl (Osu11r)
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.
Stephanie Wood
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.
Stephanie Wood
1551–1565
Jeff Haskett-Wood
tiempo, calendarios, años, turquesas, teselas, círculo, redondo
![](https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/macuilxihuitlOsu11rSmplxNoun.png?itok=n23obptT)
macuil(li), five, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/macuilli
xihui(tl), year, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xihuitl
cinco años
Stephanie Wood
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.
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![](https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/sites/default/files/macuilxihuitlOsu11rContext.png)