Xiuhcoac (TR33r)

Xiuhcoac (TR33r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph for the place name Xiuhcoac consists of a turquoise [xihuitl colored serpent [coatl. It is shown in profile, facing toward the viewer's left, with the visible eye open and the bifurcated tongue protruding. Its body is curved in a backward S shape. It has a feather device (perhaps a quecholli) in turquoise, pink, and yellow on its back. Its underbelly is pink. The tail is also bifurcated and has yellow tips--again in the shape of a quecholli, it seems. The locative -c is not shown visually.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

This place is named for a divine force or deity related to fire, which also has creation associations. Elizabeth Hill Boone noted how Quetzalcoatl drilled a new fire on "Xiuhtecuhtli/Xiuhcoatl" in the Codex Borgia. Patrick Jajovsky (On the Lips of Others, 2015, 88, 91) reports that the stone carving of Xiuhcoatl (held at Dumbarton Oaks) also refers to the fire-drilling ceremony of 1507. According to Kay Read there is also a xiuhcoatl weapon with the following meanings: greenstone, turquoise, heat, comet, grass, year, and snake. [See: Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos, 1998, 256.] this weapon was used by Huitzilopochtli to cut off the head of Coyolxauhqui, according to Esther Pasztory (Aztec Art, 1983, 173). Mutsumi Izeki describes the unusual tail of the Xiuhcoatl as "trapeze-and-ray," [See Conceptualization of 'Xihuitl,' 2008, 45.]

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

chicoaque

Gloss Normalization: 

Xiuhcoac

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Telleriano-Remensis, Codex (TR)
Date of Manuscript: 

ca. 1550–1563

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
place name
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Animals, incl. Birds, Bugs, Insects, Reptiles, etc.
Feathers
Fire, Tobacco, Incense, Smoke
Names (places)
Religion (Indigenous)
Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods
Tongue Protruding/Noticeable
Turquoise or Jade
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood and Stephanie Wood

Colors: 
blue (turquoise)
pink
yellow or golden
Shapes and Perspectives: 
S-shapes (any direction)
curving, curvy, curved
bifurcated
profile view
facing left
Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
2
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
inherent/internal/merged
Keywords: 

serpientes, serpents, snakes, víboras, xiuhpohualli, año, turquesa, xihuitl, cohuatl

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

xihui(tl), turquoise, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xihuitl-0
coa(tl), snake/serpent, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/coatl

Image Source: 

Telleriano-Remensis Codex, folio 33 recto, MS Mexicain 385, Gallica digital collection, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8458267s/f91.item.zoom

Image Source, Rights: 

The non-commercial reuse of images from the Bibliothèque nationale de France is free as long as the user is in compliance with the legislation in force and provides the citation: “Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France” or “Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.”

Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: 

Tziccoac (Mdz55r)

quecholli (Mdz42r)