Citlaltepec (Mdz17v)

Citlaltepec (Mdz17v)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Citlaltepec has two principal elements. One is the black sky full of stars (citlalin), and the other is the hill or mountain (tepetl) to which the stars are attached. The hill/mountain is a standard two-tone green bell shape with red and yellow horizontal stripes near the base and curly outcroppings on the slopes. The locative suffix (-c) is not shown visually, but it combines with -tepe- to form -tepec, a visual locative suffix meaning "on the hill" or "on the mountain."

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

çitlaltepec. pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Citlaltepec, pueblo

Gloss 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

Semantic Categories:

place name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Celestial Phenomena

Landscape Features

Names (places)

Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

bell-shaped (upright)

circle(s) (small, often concentric)

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

mountains, hills, stars, night sky, montañas, cerros, estrellas, el cielo de la noche

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

citlal(in), stars, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/citlalin
-tepec, on the hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepec

Karttunen’s Interpretation:

"On the Starry Hill" (Karttunen apparently agrees with the reading by Berdan and Anawalt) [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations:

"On Star Mountain" (Whittaker, 2021, 29); "On the Starry Hill" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 185)

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

"En la Montaña de la Estrella"

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 17 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 45 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).