Xalicuilol (MH603r)

Xalicuilol (MH603r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Xalicuilol (“Sand Painting,” attested here as a man’s name) shows a rectangular shape that could represent a painting (icuilolli). Inside the rectangle are dots that represent sand (xalli). The swirl may be there to suggest a pattern, a design, which icuilolli can also suggest.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

If this was not a sand painting (which is a phenomenon known in New Spain, in the part that is now the U.S. Southwest), then it may have been some kind of cultivation-intervention in a sandy parcel. The use of icuiloa in compounds relating to cuemitl (furrow) and tlalli (agricultural land parcel) can be found in a few glyphs shown below.

In the gloss, the starting letter (S) substitutes for the more standard X. This is somewhat unusual for Stage 1 orthography, but it does occur. See, for example, the gloss for Xolotl in the Matricula de Huexotzinco, folio 638 verso.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

pedro salicuilol

Gloss Normalization: 

Pedro Xalicuilol

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Date of Manuscript: 

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Huejotzingo, Puebla, Mexico

Semantic Categories: 
Writing Features: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
Keywords: 

sand, arena, paintings, pinturas, cuadros, icuilol, writing, escritura

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 
Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

Pintura de Arena, o Diseño/Cultivo en la Arena

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 603r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=287&st=image.

Image Source, Rights: 

This manuscript is hosted by the Library of Congress and the World Digital Library; used here with the Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SAq 3.0).

Historical Contextualizing Image: