teotl (Mdz46r)

teotl (Mdz46r)
Element from a Compound

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This element has been carved from the compound sign for the place name, Teotlilan. It is half a sun disc, with multiple colors, smaller circles, and points.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

See our record for tonatiuh (sun, day) in order to compare this half disc with a full disc. The half disc is used regularly in the glyphs of the Codex Mendoza to represent the phonetic sound "teo" and a meaning of divine force(s), sun, and calendrics. Magnus Pharao Hansen and Christophe Helmke have pointed out that it is usually the upper half of the sun sign that is used for teo-. Here we see one of the exceptions to that generality.

For further discussion of teotl and tonatiuh, see the work of Hansen and Helmke in Contributions to New World Archaeology, v. 13 (Kraków, 2019).

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Syntax: 
noun(s)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Celestial Phenomena
Religion (Indigenous)
Time, Calendar, Frequency
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Colors: 
green (light)
red
white/neutral
yellow or golden
Shapes and Perspectives: 
circle(s) (small, often concentric)
circle (half)
Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

teo(tl), divine force(s), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/teotl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

las fuerzas sagradas, la deidad, el sol

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 46 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 102 of 188.

Image Source, Rights: 

The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).

See Also: 

Teotlillan (Mdz46r)

tonatiuh (Mdz34r)