tonalli (FCbk9f9v)

tonalli (FCbk9f9v)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic example, featuring a ball of solar energy (tonalli), 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 appears in the contextualizing image, where there is a row of day signs, starting with this ball of heat (swirling yellow and orange) as though to say what follows are day signs (a serpent, a deer, a monkey, and another serpent, the latter having the number seven above its head).

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

While the tonalli image here is meant to refer to day signs, it also captures visually some of the deeper meaning of the term. Many tonalli glyphs are suns (often with faces), but they can also be something akin to a four-petaled flower with a round center, so something like a quincunx. Sometimes, between the petals, there are short sticks, perhaps meant as sun rays. In some compounds, tonalli appears as a kind of shine in the form of rays of energy.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Florentine/Florentinus, Codex (FC)

Date of Manuscript:

1577

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Syntax:

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Celestial Phenomena

Time, Calendar, Frequency

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

orange/terracotta

yellow or golden

Shapes and Perspectives:

frontal view

shimmer, vibrance, shine with warmth & movement

Keywords:

nombres de días, energía, brillar, luz solar

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tonal(li), day, sun, solar heat, or a day sign, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tonalli

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

el sol, el día, un signo del 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: