nauhtzontli pesos (Osu37r)

nauhtzontli pesos (Osu37r)
Simplex Hieroglyph
Notation

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This simplex Nahuatl notation for the number 400, shown four times (for a total of 1,600) represents sixteen hundred pesos. It is a black-ink drawing of what appears to be a little tree (a tzontli, which can mean 400 or it can be a clump of hair). The tree is washed with a brown color. The peso, which appears four times, too, is a simplex Nahuatl hieroglyph. The peso is a circle with a cross potent or a cross moline inside the circle. It is washed with a light gray color. This type of cross is like a plus sign where each leg has a little perpendicular line at the end.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The tzontli looks much like a tree here, but sometimes it looks like a bundle of hair, feather vanes or barbs, bundled grass blades, or bundled sticks, all of these being small things that could conceivably be counted in four hundreds. Centzontli is another way to refer to 400. Sixteen hundred pesos was a huge amount of money when we think that a hired Nahua man working on a Spaniard's estate might earn 1/8 of a peso per day.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image:

Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription:

nauhtzōtli.

Gloss/Text Normalization:

nauhtzontli

Gloss/Text Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Osuna, Codex (Osu)

Date of Manuscript:

1551–1565

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Syntax:

noun(s)

Writing Features:

simplex or element as logogram

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

brown

gray

Shapes and Perspectives:

circle(s) (small, often concentric)

cross (+)

frontal view

Keywords:

coins, pesos, moneda, monedas, número, números, dinero, árbol, árboles, pluma, plumas, notación

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

nahui, four, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/nahui
tzon(tli), hair, 400, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzontli
centzon(tli), 400, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/centzontli
peso, a piece of eight, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/peso

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

mil seiscientos pesos

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, 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

Orthography:

intrusive period

Historical Contextualizing Image: