matlactli omome (Mdz2r)

matlactli omome (Mdz2r)
Notation

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This notation for the number 12 (matlactli omome) has been carved from the year date, Matlactli Omome Acatl. In the original, the number bends around an acatl (reed) in three groups of two ones (left), five ones (top), and five ones (right), for the total of twelve.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

A full count of twenty ones would be a cempohualli and have its own hieroglyph, but numbers below 20 were often depicted in this way as strings of ones (represented as small circles). The grouping into fives connects to the human way of counting on fingers and toes. Twelve required the fingers of two hands, plus two toes, which seems to explain the groupings here.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

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

by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
numbers
Syntax: 
conjunction: -on- or -om- (visual)
ligature -om-/-on- (visual)
ten as two fives (notation)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Numbers, Math
Colors: 
blue (turquoise)
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
downward
Keywords: 

xiuhpohualli, año, turquesa, xihuitl

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

matlactli omome, ten, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/matlactli-omome
acatl, reed, cane, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/acatl

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 02 recto, https://codicemendoza.inah.gob.mx/inicio.php?lang=english.

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).