pesos (Azca31)
We are labeling this unglossed iconographic example of coins as “pesos,” which was a loanword taken into alphabetical Nahuatl. We have determined that these eleven coins are pesos based on the crosses they have on them. The arrangement of the coins is a horizontal row of eight across and, above that row, a smaller one with three pesos. As the contextualizing image shows with dotted lines, this money was designated for delivery to a Spaniard in armor and, ultimately, a Spaniard connected with a Christian church.
Stephanie Wood
Note the other examples of pesos, below, also show crosses. On the other hand, small coins, pieces of eight, did not have crosses. The smaller coins were called tomines, and they would have dots on them to indicate their number or, alternatively, the number 4, which was half a peso, also called a medio (and sometimes melio, in Nahuatl).
Stephanie Wood
post-1550, possibly from the early seventeenth century.
Jeff Haskett-Wood
dinero, monedas, cajas de comunidad
peso, a unit of money, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/peso
los pesos
Stephanie Wood
The Codex Azcatitlan is also known as the Histoire mexicaine, [Manuscrit] Mexicain 59–64. It is housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and hosted on line by the World Digital Library and the Library of Congress, which is “unaware of any copyright or other restrictions in the World Digital Library Collection.”
https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15280/?sp=31&st=image
The Library of Congress is “unaware of any copyright or other restrictions in the World Digital Library Collection.” But please cite Bibliothèque Nationale de France and this Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs.
