ozomatli (FCbk9f9v)

ozomatli (FCbk9f9v)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic example, featuring the monkey day sign (ozomatli), a calendrical marker, is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making potential comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the keywords chosen by the team behind the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss. This example shows a full-bodied, brown monkey sitting down and facing left, but its head is turned to look directly at the viewer. Its face is terracotta-colored, and its hands and feet have some of this coloring, too. Its prehensile tail, raised upward, is curled at the tip.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

Monkeys appear in this collection primarily as personal name glyphs (apocopated as Ozoma). In all cases so far (late August 2025), these are just the heads of the monkeys, and they are presented in a profile view, mostly facing right. So, this frontal face is unusual. It seems that frontal facing heads are something that increase in the work of tlacuilos, apparently through growing exposure to European artistic traditions, so the original significance of a frontal face may have been losing its original impact and meaning. The hair on the top of Ozoma glyphs is typically standing straight up. Some have a visible earring. The side of the face can have an inverse 3-shape.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Florentine/Florentinus, Codex (FC)

Date of Manuscript:

1577

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

calendrics

day name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Animals: Misc.

Time, Calendar, Frequency

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling

Keywords:

monos, calendarios, nombres de días

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

ozoma(tli), monkey, a calendrical marker, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ozomatli

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

el mono, nombre de día

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 9: The Merchants", fol. 9v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/9/folio/9v/images/0 Accessed 27 August 2025.

Image Source, Rights:

Images of the digitized Florentine Codex are made available under the following Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International). For print-publication quality photos, please contact the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana ([email protected]). The Library of Congress has also published this manuscript, using the images of the World Digital Library copy. “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.”

Historical Contextualizing Image: