Acatzinco (Mdz42r)

Acatzinco (Mdz42r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Acatzinco has two elements, the reed (ācatl), and -tzīn-, shown as the lower half of a male body (given the visible belt for the loincloth) and emphasizing the buttocks (tzintli). The lower half of the body is shown in profile and the person would have been facing to the viewer's right. The skin has a terracotta color, and the loincloth belt is white. The reed is largely vertical with a leader and four branches. It is painted a turquoise blue.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The reed is a calendrical name, and the cane from the plant was used for making darts and arrows, which could have a ritual significance. The -co locative ("at") is added here onto -tzin- (which Gordon Whittaker translates as "little" or "lower" when referring to a place name). The locative -tzinco is what Gordon Whittaker calls a "secondary logogram." Frances Karttunen suggests that the -tzinco in this place name is likely referring to a spin-off community of people who broke away from Acatlan, and the new community might not even have anything to do with reads. [From an unpublished manuscript by Karttunen, used here with her permission]

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

acatzinco. pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Acatzinco, pueblo

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)

Date of Manuscript:

c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

place name

Syntax:

locative (not visual)

locative (visual not silent)

noun(s)

Writing Features:

compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Anatomy, human body parts

Gender (male)

Names (places)

Plants, Flora

Textiles, Clothing, Hats, Regalia

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

blue (turquoise)

orange/terracotta

white/neutral

Shapes and Perspectives:

circle(s) (small, often concentric)

facing right

profile view

spiky

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

reeds, canes, hills, mountains, montañas, cañas, carrizo, plantas

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

āca(tl), reed, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/acatl
tzīn(tli), buttocks, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzintli
-tzinco (locative suffix), lower, little, or new [town], https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzinco
-co (locative suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/co

Karttunen’s Interpretation:

"New Acatlan" [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations:

"In the Small Reeds" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 168)

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

"Nuevo Acatlan"

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 42 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 94 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).