Cihuateotl (MH672v)

This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Cihuateotl (perhaps “Female Divinity”) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows the head of a woman in profile, facing toward the viewer’s left. She has two marks on her cheek that are iconographic for “woman” (underlining the “hua” in cihuatl, and pulling it from huahuana, to make stripes). She also has a curving, pointed labret coming out of her lower lip or chin. This ornament may say something about her divinity. Below her head is a horizontal stone (tetl), with its typically alternating dark and light stripes and curling ends. This element provides the phonetic indication for te- as the starting sound for to teotl.