necuhtli (CST39)
This painting of the simplex glyph for the term necuhtli (honey) shows a frontal view of a ceramic container of honey. The container has a European style, with a very round bowl, large curving handles, and a small mouth (perhaps meant to prefer easy spills).
Stephanie Wood
The companion text notes that honey and sugar were purchased with 10 pesos and given to the local hospital (“espital,” a loan from Spanish) for feeding sick people (“cocox[que],” a Nahuatl term). [See Kevin Terraciano, Codex Sierra, 2021, pp. 124 and 157.] This was a time of raging epidemics as a result of germs inadvertently brought over from Europe with colonization. With no immunities, the Indigenous population was hit extremely hard.
Stephanie Wood
1550–1564
Jeff Haskett-Wood
miel, néctar
necuh(tli), nectar or honey, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/necuhtli
miel
Stephanie Wood
Códice Sierra-Texupan, plate 39, page dated 1561. Origin: Santa Catalina Texupan, Mixteca Alta, State of Oaxaca. Kevin Terraciano has published an outstanding study of this manuscript (Codex Sierra, 2021), and in his book he refers to alphabetic and “pictorial” writing, not hieroglyphic writing. We are still counting some of the imagery from this source as hieroglyphic writing, but we are also including examples of “iconography” where the images verge on European style illustrations or scenes showing activities. We have this iconography category so that such images can be fruitfully compared with hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphic writing was evolving as a result of the influence of European illustrations, and even alphabetic writing impacted it.
https://bidilaf.buap.mx/objeto.xql?id=48281&busqueda=Texupan&action=search
The Biblioteca Digital Lafragua of the Biblioteca Histórica José María Lafragua in Puebla, Mexico, publishes this Códice Sierra-Texupan, 1550–1564 (62pp., 30.7 x 21.8 cm.), referring to it as being in the “Public Domain.” This image is published here under a Creative Commons license, asking that you cite the Biblioteca Digital Lafragua and this Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs.
