Chimalco (Mdz23r)

Chimalco (Mdz23r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph for the place name Chimalco has two principal features. One is a shield (chimalli) in the form of two concentric circles separated by white, and the inner circle painted yellow. The other element is a vertical flag/banner (pantli), all white. The locative suffix (-co) is not show visually.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The banner is somewhat puzzling. It can provide the phonetic element for the locative suffix -pan (in or on), but this place name does not end in -pan. Berdan and Anawalt remind us that Clark (1938 2:28) suggested this glyph refers to Panchimalco, pointing to a Pipil (Nahua) place in El Salvador. But there is a Panchimalco in the Cuernavaca region as the glyph contributed by Robert Haskett shows (below). That said, there is also a Chimalco that is part of the municipality of Chimalhuacan in the state of Mexico today.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

chimalco. puo

Gloss Normalization: 

Chimalco, pueblo

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
Reading Order, Notes: 

If this glyph is really for Panchimalco, then the reading should be outward.

Keywords: 

shields, rodelas, escudos, armas, flags, banderas

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 23 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 56 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).