Saturday, June 25, 2011

The Tonalamatl Aubin, Quetzcoatl, Tepeyollotli, and Drew University

My copy of the Tonalamatl Aubin came in a few weeks ago and I've been spending some time assimilating the images and doing some value-adding...

The library that graciously made it happen was the Drew University Library, in Madison New Jersey.

The book itself was originally published in German by Eduard Seler and is available in PDF format from the FAMSI website here.

Embarassingly, after having spent lots of time finegalling this giantly oversized book to get decent photocopies of the outline explanations - I found that they've all been scanned and look incredible - right here. Albeit in German...

Here's the original plate showing Quetzalcoatl holding a sacrificial victim in one hand and what, accoring to the translation, appears to be a turd or the symbol for "sin" in the other hand. The symbol is given as cuitlatl - excrement, sign of sin.




And finally, here's my version of the line drawings, using Photoshop's filtering effect "Glowing Edges" to give it a LightBrite look, and then Inversing the result to get a nice outline effect.



The book I received gave the explanations for all the regalia and parephenalia depicted in the insets, which I'll transcribe here...

Chief Person: Tepeyollotli - the voice of the mountain
Facing Him: teccizti – sea snail shell
Accompanying Person: Quetzalcouatl, - the Wind God
On His Breast: eca-ilacatz-coatl – the spirally twisted ornament of the Wind God
In His Hand: cuitlatl - excrement – sign of sin
Symbol: atl-tlachinolli – spear throwing (water) and conflagration, symbolic indication of war

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