Chalco (Mdz3v)

Chalco (Mdz3v)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This is a colorful painting of the simplex glyph for the place name Chalco ("In the Hollow," according to Gordon Whittaker). It is also the sign for chalchihuitl (local jade), with its mottled green center (the stone), with a red ring and other concentric rings suggesting resplendence.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The red ring around the green stone may also suggest a metaphorical passage to an interior, like a shore around a body of water. Mirrors, also circled in red, might have been considered in a similar way. The green stone seems to serve as a phonetic indicator for the term chal, hollow.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image: 
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
homophony, rebus
phonetic dimensions
place name
Syntax: 
noun(s)
syllable: chal (from chalchihuitl, green stone)
Writing Features: 
simplex or element as logogram
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Names (places)
Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods
Colors: 
green (light)
red
white/neutral
Shapes and Perspectives: 
bird's eye view
circle(s) (small, often concentric)
circle, circular or rounded
segmented
Keywords: 

nombres de lugares

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

Chalco, a place name, a municipality, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chalco

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 3 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 17 of 188.

Image Source, Rights: 

The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).