Gordon Whittaker
University of Göttingen
The Controversial Relationship between Aztec Iconography and Writing
Abstract
In this presentation the nature of the unusual relationship and iconic symbiosis between Aztec iconography and writing will be examined. Although a full-fledged writing system, the Aztec hieroglyphic script has freely incorporated a number of features from iconography (including the semantics of colour, dimensionality, and interaction between signs), and vice versa, iconography from writing.
Of particular interest is the phenomenon that I have dubbed “graphic syllepsis,” which is characterized by the use of a sign in two functions or readings simultaneously, not unlike our crosswords, in which a letter can represent part of a sequence in two words at the same time, but more complex in nature. The occasionally curious semantic and aesthetic relationship between two Aztec elements in a glyphic compound, without regard to their status as logograms or phonograms and purely based on their iconic references, is a further feature to be discussed.
Images Related to the Talk
