Amacoztitlan (Mdz23r)

The "a" sound is a clue to the rectangle being a piece of fir-bark paper (amatl). The rectangle is yellow, coztic. So "amacoz-" refers to yellow paper. The ligature "ti" is not shown visually, although sometimes, as Gordon Whittaker notes, the -titlan will be represented by a full mouth of teeth. The teeth (tlantli) serve to trigger the phonetic reading of the locative suffix, -tlan, which Frances Karttunen suggests means "beneath, among" and sometimes "place" or "near." The final result, is a reference to a type of tree, "Amacoztic Trees," according to Karttunen, who agrees with the reading by Berdan and Anawalt. Since amatl is a type of paper and comes from a ficus tree, perhaps this Amacoztic tree is more yellow than the usual ficus.

The Real Academia Española describes the "amacóstic" tree as an "árbol de jugo lechoso, con hojas cordadas en la base y fruto globoso (Ficus petiolaris H. B. K.)."

The gloss shows the locative suffix -tla (or -tlah), where things are abundant, but the teeth lead us to the alternate locative suffix -tlan, among. So, we are going with the latter interpretation. It could also be the "Place of the Amacoztic Trees." If so, the yellow and the paper are not literal but play a phonetic role, as does the -tlan.

Complicating the comfort with this analysis is the existence of a "river in the hotlands" known as Amacozatl (also spelled Amacotzatl), which raises the question of a place called Amacoztitlan being near the river in the hotlands. There was also a barrio Amacotzac (near Cohuixco) that may have taken its name from the river.