zolcilin (FCbk11f212v)

This compound hieroglyph features a type of shell (zolcilin). The term selected for this example comes from the text near the image in the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss, per se. The cedilla on the C, incidentally, appears to have been added in a different ink; perhaps it was a hypercorrection. This compound glyph has two elements. One, at the top, is the head of a quail (zolin), in profile, facing left. Below the bird’s head is a vertical, turbinate shell (cilin), with the coil at the top. The shell and the quail have the same kind of spots, so perhaps the quail is a semantic indicator, a look-alike with the shell. If the text did not point directly to the quail, one might have thought of another possibility, that the quail is a phonetic indicator for the zol- of zoltic (old), suggesting that the shell looks old. The quail’s head and the shell are only barely detached; they are lined up, almost like one animal.