Caltecoyan (TK204v)

Caltecoyan (TK204v)
Compound Hieroglyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the place name Caltecoyan (perhaps a building where certain things happen habitually) in the tribute district of Tepetlaoztoc (spelled Tepetlaoxtoc today), which is near Tetzcoco (spelled as Texcoco today). The elements of the compound include a house or building (calli) and, above that, a part of a face that features the lips (tentli). The house is a logogram, and the lips are a phonetic indicator for the -te- syllable in the middle of the name. A third element consists of two alternating footprints, which suggests movement, as though someone is walking out of the front door of the building. What these footprints add to the reading remains to be deciphered. The building is a graduated red color that fades to pink or white.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

This is the first glyph for Caltecoyan to enter this digital collection (as of April 2026), but calli glyphs are abundant, and the profile view of these buildings is typical for pre-1560. The use of tentli for the -te- syllable is also very common, especially for this region.

Side Note: The folio numbers are not always clear in the copy published online by the British Museum. Marc Thouvenot gives this page the number K02_B in his TLACHIA digital collection, https://tlachia.iib.unam.mx/tepetlaoztoc/K02_B.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image:

Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription:

caltecoya

Gloss/Text Normalization:

Caltecoyan

Gloss/Text Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Tepetlaoztoc, Codex (aka Kingsborough) (TK)

Date of Manuscript:

c. 1556

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Tepetlaoztoc, East of Lake Tetzcoco

Semantic Categories:

phonetic dimensions

place name

Syntax:

noun(s)

syllable: te/ten/teo (from tentli/lips)

Writing Features:

compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Anatomy, human body parts

Architecture, Construction, Buildings

Footprint(s), human

Movement

Names (places)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

facing right

profile view

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

upward

Keywords:

labio, labios, topónimo, topónimos, nombres de lugares, fonetismo

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

cal(li), house or building, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/calli
-tecoyan, a place where certain things happen, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tecoyan
-yan, place where this happens habitually or customarily, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/yan

Image Source:

The Codex Kingsborough, also known as the Códice de Tepetlaoztoc, and the Memorial de los indios de Tepetlaoztoc, is not on display. It was transferred from the British Library and is now held by the British Museum. It is shared on line at: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Am2006-Drg-13964

Image Source, Rights:

©The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. Please also cite the <em>Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphsem>, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities Projects, 2020-present) and this URL.

Historical Contextualizing Image: