axoxohuilli (FCbk11f226v)

axoxohuilli (FCbk11f226v)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic example, featuring water that is supposed to be green (axoxohuilli), is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the text near the image in the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss, per se. This example shows a black-line rectangle with the lower two fifths filled with a black-line drawing of a horizontal band of water and, along the top, apparently a band of gray sky or clouds. The water is full of lines of movement, including three swirls. These could be waves on a beach, given that some discussions of the term axoxohuilli refer to a beach (see our Online Nahuatl Dictionary). Some attestations of the term also refer to water so deep it looks green, along with a lighter green color when the water is shallow.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

Green is a popular element in hieroglyphic texts, and it appears quite a few times in this digital collection. See, for example, the place name glyph for Xoxouhtla (Mdz23r) or the personal name Xoxouqui (MH535r). These have been painted a turquoise blue color. The overlapping terms green and blue are probably best expressed in turquoise, given that its colors range from a light bright blue to shades of green. This is true, too, of water.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image:

Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription:

Axoxovilli

Gloss/Text Normalization:

axoxohuilli

Gloss/Text Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Florentine/Florentinus, Codex (FC)

Date of Manuscript:

1577

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Syntax:

noun(s)

reduplication (in gloss/text)

visual movement

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Celestial Phenomena

Gender (male)

Water

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

black & white drawing (no color)

Shapes and Perspectives:

frontal view

rectangular

spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling

Keywords:

mar, océano, colores

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

axoxohuil(li), green water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/axoxohuilli
xoxouhqui, green or blue-green in color, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xoxouhqui

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

el agua verde

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 11: Earthly Things", fol. 226v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/226v/images/0 Accessed 16 November 2025.

Image Source, Rights:

Images of the digitized Florentine Codex are made available under the following Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International). For print-publication quality photos, please contact the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana ([email protected]). The Library of Congress has also published this manuscript, using the images of the World Digital Library copy. “The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright or other restrictions in the World Digital Library Collection. Absent any such restrictions, these materials are free to use and reuse.”

Orthography:

"v" for u, uh, or hu

Historical Contextualizing Image: