Necaliztli (MH852v)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Necaliztli (perhaps “Battle”) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows a traditional war shield (chimalli). It is round with a quincunx pattern. A small circle appears in the middle, and four semicircles with hatch marks appear around the perimeter of the shield. The shield has five lines at the bottom and two at the top left that suggest fringe. Flying at an angle above the shield appear five stick-like shapes. These might suggest arrows that have been shot during warfare. The shield and possible arrows are semantic representations of war or battle (necaliztli). There are not apparent phonetic dimensions.
Stephanie Wood
While warfare is a significant theme in early Nahua history, this is the first necaliztli glyph entering this digital collection with over six thousand glyphs, elements, and examples of iconography so far. Far more common are shields that represent names or words representing chimalli or yaotl.
Stephanie Wood
dio necaliztli
Diego Necaliztli
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
guerras, batallas, lucha, escudo, flechas, nombres de hombres

necaliz(tli), a battle or a war, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/necaliztli
Batalla
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 852v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=777&st=image.
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).
