atl (MH483v)
This element for water (atl) has been carved from the compound sign for the personal name, Atl Popoca (or perhaps Atlpopoca). It is a black line drawing with water shown in two ways. One is a swirling part on the lower end, spinning toward the viewer's left. Above that are what may be four splashes going upward, each with a droplet at the end of the splash.
Stephanie Wood
The upper part of the water, possibly to be interpreted as taking the form of splashes, also could well be flames, intended to serve as the source of the smoke for the popoca part of the person's name. See, for example, the flames in the glyph for tlachinolli and in Teocuitlatlan, below. For swirling water, see for example Acozpan. The Nahuas have a concept called atl tlachinolli, flood and conflagration, which show a relationship between water and fire that is intriguing for what we might be seeing in atl popoca. See the symbol for atl tlachinolli hosted by Mexicolore. The part on the lower right might have a similarity to the part on the atl popoca glyph between the water and the smoke.
Stephanie Wood
1560
This manuscript is hosted by the Library of Congress and the World Digital Library; used here with the Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SAq 3.0).
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 483v, World Digital Library. https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=46&st=image.
