Ahuatepec (Mdz21v)

Ahuatepec (Mdz21v)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Ahuatepec has three components: there is a hill or mountain (tepetl or tepētl) with an oak tree on top (ahuatl or āhuatl), and, as a further visual and phonetic clue to what kind of tree this is, we see turquoise water (atl or ātl) flowing from the tree branches. The tree has a leader and two side branches and green foliage. The water has the typical droplets (or beads) and turbinate shells at the tips of the streams. The locative suffix (-c) is not shown visually, but it combines with -tepe- to form -tepec, a visual locative suffix meaning "on the hill" or "on the mountain."

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

Ahuatepec is a common town name, with examples found still today in, for example, the states of Puebla, Morelos, and Guerrero. The āhuatl tree here has a similar shape as the cuahuitl, except for the water flowing from the greenery, meant to emphasize the "a" sound, and it doesn't have the classic black stripes (tlilcuahuitl) that are a phonetic clue to the reading cuahuitl.

Below, right, one can see the Ahuatepec glyph from the earlier Matrícula de Tributos, page 4 (hosted on line by the Library of Congress, from the World Digital Library, and therefore open source).

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

ahuatepec. pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Ahuatepec, 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:

phonetic dimensions

place name

Syntax:

locative (visual not silent)

noun(s)

Writing Features:

compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods

Water

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

bell-shaped (upright)

circle(s) (small, often concentric)

tripartite

vertical, upright

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

plants, water, mountains, hills, oak trees, shells, árboles, robles, caracoles, agua, cerros, montañas

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

a(tl) or ā(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atl
ahua(tl) or āhua(tl), oak tree, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ahuatl
tepe(tl) or tepē(tl), hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepetl
-tepec or tepēc, on the hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepec

Karttunen’s Interpretation:

"At Oak Hill" [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations:

"On the Hill of the Oak Tree" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 170)

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

"En el Cerro de los Robles"

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 21 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 53 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).

Historical Contextualizing Image: