Rebus Writing

          Marriage between Lord 8 Deer and Lady 13 Serpent in the Codex Zouche-Nuttall, c. 1450 CE, Mixtec (or Ñudzavui), Late Postclassic period, deerskin, folio 27 (The British Museum)

 

         For my first blog post of week 13 I decided to focus on something that I haven’t done before. In Mesoamerica there were many different cultures and inside each culture they each had different ways to communicate their beliefs. The two groups that really stood out to me during this time period were the Nahua and the Mixtec. Obviously, these are two completely different cultures but there was something that they shared. They shared a form of writing called “Rebus Writing” which means, “writing with pictures.” You may also hear this form of writing called “” writing without words” or “writing with signs” …. It is also called pictographic, ideographic, or picture writing.” According to Smart History. Instead of traditional writing with letters and words they use images to communicate what they feel. Imagine this, you draw an eye, a heart, and a piece of cake. By drawing that you are communication that “I love cake.” It is quite simple, but their Rebus writing doesn’t just look like I love cake. As you can see in the picture above, someone put some serious time into this piece of Rebus Writing. This shows how much their culture values their beliefs and their story. The amount of detail in the writing is just jaw dropping. Just by looking at this picture you can see that there are two individuals sitting and facing each other on the same platform. We can also infer that this is some sort of ceremony because on the bottom and middle of the writing we see different serpents and a deer. We also see a vase in the middle. Once you do some research on this piece of Rebus Writing, you learn that it is a conventional marriage between Lord 8 Deer and Lady 13 Serpent. We also learn that the object, I called a vase in the middle of the writing, is a jar of “Pulque or Chocolate” which is a sign for royal marriage in the Mixtec culture. 

Smart History Link: https://smarthistory.org/mesoamerica-an-introduction/

“Mesoamerica, an Introduction.” Smarthistory, smarthistory.org/mesoamerica-an-introduction/.