Amiltzinco (Mdz25r)

While the agricultural field appears to be a milli, the presence of the productive maize plant (a supplemental semantic indicator) may be a sign that this is an especially fertile and irrigated field, an amilli, or āmīlli, when we recognize vowel length. This word might have included a water element for the a- [from atl) at its start, but it does not show the water. Interestingly, the chinamitl in the Codex Mendoza (below, right) looks much like the amilli. Both involved agriculture with irrigation. The -co locative ("at") is added onto -tzin- ("little" or "lower" when referring to a place name), so the -co is not presented visually on its own. The locative -tzinco is what Gordon Whittaker calls a "secondary logogram." Frances Karttunen interprets the -tzinco ending to be a spin-off community, hence the "New" in New Amilco, her translation for the place name. There is an Amilcingo in the modern state of Morelos, Mexico.