Matlactli Once Acatl (Mdz2r)
This combined simplex glyph and notation represents a date, the solar year (xihuitl) Eleven Reed (Matlactli Once Acatl, 11-Acatl). It includes small circles in groupings. Five circles (ones or counters) are arranged horizontally across the top of the square that contains the date. Another grouping of five circles are in a vertical row down the right side, and just below those is one circle after a slight separation. The ones do not have dots or smaller concentric circles in them, the way some of them do (for comparisons, see below). The compound date glyph is boxed in with a black-line drawing. The reed (acatl) glyph is centered at the bottom. The reed has the styling of the reed arrow with fletching, upright, with a frontal view, inside what might be a cross-section of a canal (apantli). The entire box and its contents are colored turquoise.
Stephanie Wood
The turquoise (xihuitl) wash over the date is a visual reminder (and perhaps a phonetic indicator) that these are year (xihuitl) dates, as the two words are homophones. The presentation of the notation, in three groups of ones (5 + 5 + 1 = 11) is like a mathematical equation. The alphabetic number for eleven, matlactli once, is ten (matlactli) plus (-on-) one (ce). The word for "plus" (what we are calling a ligature) is shown visually with slight separations between the groups of ones or counters. Naturally, two fives make ten, but this is not spelled out in the oral or written words for eleven, it is only indicated visually. The presence of "once" in Nahuatl is purely a coincidence and has nothing to do with the number eleven in Spanish, as it just means "plus one." Calendrics were an important element in the Nahuas' religious views of the cosmos.
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
numbers, números, feathers, plumas, flechas, dardas, arrows, darts, reeds, cañas, fechas, calendarios, plantas, canales, xiuhpohualli, año, turquesa, xihuitl
matlactli once acatl. This date appears on a stone sculpture of the divinity Huehueteotl. Photograph by Robert Haskett, Museo del Templo Mayor, 15 February 2023.
matlac(tli), ten, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/matlactli
matlactli once, eleven, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/matlactli
ce, one, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ce
aca(tl), reed, cane, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/acatl
Once Caña, or 11-Caña
Stephanie Wood
Codex Mendoza, folio 02 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 14 of 188.
The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).
