Acatl Icpac (Mdz23r)

Acatl Icpac (Mdz23r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Acatl Icpac has two components, one is a reed/arrow (acatl) and the other is a hill or mountain (tepetl). The arrow is made from the cane (yellow) of a reed plant, but on either side of it are reed foliage (turquoise blue). The arrow is decorated with a brown eagle feather and a small white down ball, which are typical features of the reed arrow or dart and the calendrical symbol for acatl. The hill has the usual bell shape and the two-tone green coloring, plus the red and yellow horizontal stripes at the base. There is no locative suffix, as the "Icpac" (an adverb) in the place name says where (above) the reed is located.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

Berdan and Anawalt recognize both the arrow and the reed in their translation. The reed foliage may be there to ensure that the phonetic reading is acatl) and not mitl) (arrow).

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

acatl icpac. pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Acatl Icpac (or Acatlicpac), pueblo

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)

Date of Manuscript:

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

place name

calendrics

year name

day name

Syntax:

adverb

locative (visual but silent)

noun(s)

phrase or sentence

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Weapons, Shields, Armor

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

bell-shaped (upright)

spiky

vertical, upright

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

reeds, rushes, canes, hills, arrows, darts, feathers, acatl, icpac, tepetl, tules, carrizos, plants

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

aca(tl), reed or reed-arrow/dart, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/acatl
-icpac, on top or above, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/icpac

Karttunen’s Interpretation:

"On Top of the (Arrow) Reeds" (Karttunen apparently agrees with Berdan & Anawalt's translation) [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations:

"On Top of the (Arrow) Reeds" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 168)

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

"Encima de las Cañas (Usadas Para Flechas)"

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 23 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 56 of 188.

Image Source, Rights:

The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).