Miquiz (MH829r)

Miquiz (MH829r)
Simplex Hieroglyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Miquiz (“Death”) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows a frontal view of a bald corpse that is wrapped in a vertically striped shroud from the neck down. Two diagonal pieces of rope are visible, apparently holding the shroud onto the body. The eyes are not slits as they often are on corpses; these eyes appear round.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

Miquiztli is a day name in the 260-day divinatory religious calendar called the tonalpohualli. Originally, the name would be Miquiztli and it would have a number attached to it, but by 1560, these calendrical names were evolving.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image: 
Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription: 

miguel miquiz

Gloss/Text Normalization: 

Miguel Miquiz

Gloss/Text Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Huexotzinco, Matrícula de (MH)
Date of Manuscript: 

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Huejotzingo, Puebla

Semantic Categories: 
calendrics
day name
personal name
Syntax: 
noun(s)
Writing Features: 
simplex or element as logogram
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Body postures
Death, decay, decomposition
Gender (male)
Hair (human or animal)
Names (personal and/or theonym)
Religion (Indigenous)
Textiles, Clothing, Hats, Shoes, Regalia
Time, Calendar, Frequency
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors: 
black & white drawing (no color)
Shapes and Perspectives: 
frontal view
striped
tied, bound, or bundled
V-shapes, or wedge
Keywords: 

cadáver, fallecido, cuerpo, sudario, mortaja, nombres de hombres

Museum/Rare Book/Realia Comparisons: 
Museum/Rare Book/Realia Notes: 

This is a detail of a “sacred bundle” (bulto sagrado, in Spanish, and possibly tlaquimilolli, in Nahuatl) of Telpochtli (a divine force that was part of the Tezcatlipoca group). It has been extracted from the reproduction of an Inquisition manuscript from 1539–1540 that features five sacred bundles. Sacred bundles are shrouded something like the deceased (see the hieroglyph above). The reproduction here was made by Dinorah Lejarazu Rubin ca. 1990. Museo del Templo Mayor. Photograph by Stephanie Wood, 18 January 2026.

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

miquiz(tli), death, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/miquiztli

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

Muerte

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 829r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=732&st=image.

Image Source, Rights: 

This manuscript is hosted by the Library of Congress and the World Digital Library; used here with the Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SAq 3.0).

Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: 

Miquiz (MH518r)

Miquiz (MH520r)

Miquiz (MH624r)

Miquiz (MH677v)

Mictlan (Mdz43r)

Micquetlan (Mdz52r)