yohualli (Mdz39r)

yohualli (Mdz39r)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This simplex glyph for night (yohualli) stands for the place name Yohuallan. Night is represented as a circular shape, dark gray in color, with what some call a "starry" or a "stellar" eye at the center and nine more eyes or stars around the perimeter of the circle (for a total of ten eyes, or stars). The eye lids, red in color, are half closed. Circling the inner eye is a dashed line and inside that a series of ten horseshoe shaped marks.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The light or shine from eyes apparently has a relationship to starlight. The dark color of the larger circle seems to speak to the darkness of night, but this night sky also has symbols much like we see on most representations of tlalli (Earth, land, agricultural parcel), that remains to be analyzed here. Compare this glyph for yohualli with others.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

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

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

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

Stephanie Wood

Shapes and Perspectives: 
symmetry
U-shapes (any direction)
SVG of Glyph: 
SVG Image, Credit: 

Joseph Scott and Crystal Boulton-Scott made the SVG.

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

yohual(li), night, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/yohualli

Additional Scholars' Interpretations: 

night

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

la noche

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza folio 39 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 88 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: 

tlalli (Mdz32r)

milli (Mdz6r)

Yohual (MH568v)