Atlitic (YacRG)

This is a compound glyph naming Atlitic (which could be spelled Atl Itic), an estancia (subject community) of the cabecera (head town) known today as Yecapixtla (Morelos). The glyph appears on the map of the Relación Geográfica de Acapistla (another rendition of the same place name, which probably should be Yacapitztla) dating from 1581. The glyph is rather dispersed on the map, so that is how it appears here, too. Perhaps it is not quite a glyph, but glyph-like. The place name means “amidst the waters,” which is why the painting of the community’s church (a semantic indicator for “place”) is shown between the two water features, atl, water, and itic, amidst, between, or inside. The two water features are outlined in black and have several nodes tipped with small concentric red-outlined circles representing droplets, precious gems, or both (but nothing that seems to be a turbinate shell). The water features are shown as swirling, roughly circular elements on the end of streams. These features have blue water, wavy black lines, and black spiral vortexes in their centers. The small church, in frontal view, is outlined in red and colored in red and pink, has a large arched doorway, and a double peaked roof surmounted by a cross. The structure has a horizontal, rectangular base, which sits on top of a red-outlined but otherwise uncolored rectangular box holding the alphabetic gloss (see the historical contextualizing image and gloss).