![]() We will keep our citations to them short (Berdan and Anawalt, Codex Mendoza, volume and page number). ![]() Berdan and Patricia Anawalt published by the University of California Press in 1992 has been of enormous help in analyzing material included in this database. The four-volume study of the Codex Mendoza by Frances F. We have chosen to begin building this collection with a focus on the Codex Mendoza, seeing these glyphs as exemplary: they are beautifully drawn and painted, of a good size for visual access to their details, excellent digital photos have been provided to us, and most glyphs are glossed in alphabetical Nahuatl, making identification of the glyphs and their elements fairly reliable (even if there are a few errant glosses). (citation to Gordon Whittaker and further explanation forthcoming) The reading of these glyphs is clearly tied to a specific language, Nahuatl, with a strong presence of phoneticism, occasional verbs, and a few complete sentences. We approach this study of hieroglyphs (which we will also call "glyphs" for short, even if this more popular label is less precise), fully believing that this was a writing system. The hieroglyphs we include here might also be called "Nahua," as an adjective, given that the language Nahuatl was spoken both inside and outside the Aztec empire, not just by Aztecs.Įvidence that the Nahuatl language is specifically tied to these hieroglyphs, which this collection aims to document, is significant when considering this as a writing system. Pre-Columbian manuscripts are rare, as are the small numbers of glyphs carved in stone or marked on ceramics, so the bulk of surviving glyphs are found in colonial-period manuscripts. While some observers would argue that Spanish colonization made the label "Aztec" obsolete, we are using it here to point to the pre-contact origins of the glyphs, even if some glyphs would show influences that came with colonization. ![]() The vast majority of hieroglyphs in this database will be drawn from manuscripts prepared in the pre-Hispanic Aztec tradition but painted after the colonization of Mesoamerica by Europeans was underway. Glyphs from the Xolotl codex will be added to this database in due course. We also wish to acknowledge the financial contribution of the National Endowment for the Humanities by way of a subcontract on the Scholarly Editions and Translations grant, “The Corpus Xolotl Project: Indigenous History and Performance in Aztec and Colonial Texcoco, Mexico,” October 2018–September 2021, held by Professor Benjamin Johnson at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. This digital collection of hieroglyphs was conceived in Germany in 2017 by a team of researchers that includes Stephanie Wood (general editor of the companion online Nahuatl Dictionary) of the University of Oregon Gordon Whittaker (a leading scholar of Aztec hieroglyphs) of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany Edward Trager (who has shaped our idea for using Scalable Vector Graphics and creating a Unicode set of glyphs) of the University of Michigan Daniel Werning (an Egyptian hieroglyph and Unicode specialist) of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany and, Matthew Coler (a Digital Humanist specializing in language and technology and the creator of a collection of Aymara texts) of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
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