Tonatiuh (FCbk7f1v)

Tonatiuh (FCbk7f1v)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic example, featuring the sun (tonatiuh) 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 and the companion Nahuatl text. This example shows a frontal view of a yellow sun with a circular anthropomorphic face. The sun is primarily yellow, but with red facial features and many wavy orange rays on a turquoise-blue sky as a background.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The earliest Nahua rendition of the sun in this collection (as of July 2025) comes from the Codex Mendoza. It is round with points (rays?) and small circles that may provide shimmer. Interestingly, the Codex Mendoza uses half of the sun sign for the concept of teotl (divinity), as seen in the glyphs below. Later glyphs (for Tonal and Tonatiuh, for example), such as those from Huexotzinco in 1560, do have suns with faces, as this iconographic example from the Florentine Codex also does.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

Tonatiuh

Gloss Normalization:

Tonatiuh

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Florentine/Florentinus, Codex (FC)

Date of Manuscript:

1577

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

deity name/theonym

Syntax:

noun(s)

rays (e.g., tonalli, tonatiuh, or ilhuitl)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Celestial Phenomena

Religion (Indigenous)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

border (red, plain, or patterned)

circle, circular or rounded

frontal view

pointed (see also spiky)

Keywords:

sol, soles, caras, rayos, nombres de deidades, nombres de fuerzas divinas

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tonatiuh, the sun, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tonatiuh

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

el sol (y una fuerza divina, nombre de deidad

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 7: The Sun, Moon and Stars", fol. 1v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/7/folio/1v/images/0 Accessed 12 July 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: