yacatl (Mdz10r)

yacatl (Mdz10r)
Element from a Compound

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This element for a nose (yacatl) has been carved from the compound sign for the place name, Ocoyacac (Ocoyoacac, today). This nose is painted a terracotta color. It is shown in profile, facing to the viewer's left.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

This nose is not intended to convey any meaning about human anatomy other than that a nose is reminiscent of a point. But here, the landscape feature of importance is a ridge, point, or peak.

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: 
Anatomy, human body parts
Landscape Features
Colors: 
orange/terracotta
Shapes and Perspectives: 
facing left
profile view
pointed (see also spiky)
vertical, upright
Keywords: 

noses, narices, picos, puntas, crestas

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

yaca(tl), nose, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/yacatl
-yacac (locative suffix), at the ridge, on the peak, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/yacac

Additional Scholars' Interpretations: 

nose

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 10 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 30 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: 

Ocoyacac (Mdz10r)