atotonilli (Mdz8r)

atotonilli (Mdz8r)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This simplex glyph for atotonilli (hot water) doubles for the place name Atotonilco. To express the concept of hot water, the glyph includes a ceramic pot (terracotta-colored) with a black bottom. It sits on two stones (with the typical wavy lines of purple and orange or terracotta coloring), and water spills over the edges of the top of the pot. The water is a turquoise blue, with typical lines of current, white turbinate shells, and white droplets/beads coming off the flow. The -co locative suffix, intentionally or not, can be conveyed by the ceramic pot (comitl).

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

This simplex glyph could also be considered a compound, given that it contains elements that are also glyphic in and of themselves--the stones (tetl), the water (atl), and the pot (comitl), with all their classic glyph-like characteristics. Atotonilco is likely a place with hot springs or thermal waters, having nothing to do with cooking, even if that visual is meant to bring forth the reading of someone boiling water on a hearth. The size of the pot varies in the Codex Mendoza, as Gordon Whittaker has pointed out, which results in the place names Atotonilco and Huei Atotonilco (the latter, being Greater Atotonilco).

Added 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

Syntax:

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Containers, Dishes, Eating Utensils

Food, Eating, Cooking

Landscape Features

Water

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

black

blue (turquoise)

orange/terracotta

Shapes and Perspectives:

circle, circular or rounded

circle(s) (small, often concentric)

Keywords:

boiling water, agua hervida, hot springs, aguas calientes

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

atotonil(li), hot water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atotonilli
totonil(ia), to heat something, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/totonilia
a(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atl
comi(tl), ceramic pot, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/comitl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

el agua caliente

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 8 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 26, of 188.

Image Source, Rights:

Original manuscript is held by the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1; used here with the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0)