Chapoltepec (Azca16)

Chapoltepec (Azca16)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This painted black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the place name Chapoltepec (“On Grasshopper Hill”) shows a frontal view of a hill (tepetl) with a choppy rectangular top and curling rocky outcroppings at the base. The hill also has the horizontal red slit at the bottom which could be the site of a natural spring (atl). On top of the hill is a grasshopper in profile, facing toward the viewer’s right. It has a red and white body, including the head and legs. A part of the body is segmented. The head shows a visible eye and antennae. The wings have something of a mesh pattern and are painted gray.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The contextualizing image shows three streams coming from the base of the hill of Chapoltepec (today spelled Chapultepec). The image of a contemporary reproduction of a glyph for Chapoltepec (in the museum field) makes it clearer that water is coming out of the slit at the bottom of the hill, underlining that location as a natural escape for spring water. See also the Ixicayan glyph below, which has water emerging from the slit, too. One might well wonder if the slit has a conceptual connection to female labia and fertility, especially when this slit often involves two layers, red and yellow. See the essay to the left about glyphs showing red and yellow interiors of the human body and interiors of the Earth.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

Chapoltepec

Gloss Normalization:

Chapoltepec

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Azcatitlan, Codex (Azca)

Date of Manuscript:

post-1550, possibly from the early seventeenth century.

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

perhaps Tlatelolco, Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

place name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Writing Features:

compound fully logographic

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Animals: Insects & Bugs

Landscape Features

Names (places)

Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

checked, cross-hatched, or mesh

spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

chapulines, cerros, agua, nombres de lugares, topónimos, pueblos

Museum & Rare Book Comparisons:

Museum/Rare Book Notes:

This photo of a reproduction of a glyph of Chapoltepec shows natural spring water (atl) emerging from the horizontal slit at the bottom of the hill (tepetl). This glyph appears in the Castillo de Chapultepec, Mexico City, at the base of a set of stairs. Shot by Stephanie Wood, 29 April 2025.

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

chapol(in), grasshopper, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/chapolin
-tepec, on the hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepec

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

El el Cerro del Chapulin, o En el Cerro de los Chapulines

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

The Codex Azcatitlan is also known as the Histoire mexicaine, [Manuscrit] Mexicain 59–64. It is housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and hosted on line by the World Digital Library and the Library of Congress, which is “unaware of any copyright or other restrictions in the World Digital Library Collection.”
https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15280/?sp=16&st=image

Image Source, Rights:

The Library of Congress is “unaware of any copyright or other restrictions in the World Digital Library Collection.” But please cite Bibliothèque Nationale de France and this Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs.

Historical Contextualizing Image: