Coatzinco (Mdz42r)

Coatzinco (Mdz42r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph for the place name Coatzinco has two principal features. One is a snake/serpent (coatl), and the other is the lower part of a human body, rear end, and buttocks [tzintli, which provides the phonetic value for the locative suffix (-tzinco). The snake is curving and shown in profile, looking to the viewer's right. It is painted a light brown turning to yellow toward the belly. The belly itself is white and segmented. The snake has a rattler on the end, painted the same brown as most of its body. The snake's tongue is painted red, is protruding, and is bifurcated. It looks much like a flame. The tzintli is from the body of a man, obvious from the white belt of the loincloth. It is painted a terracotta flesh tone. The body is upright, and the knees are bent upward, typical of the posture of a seated male.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, but 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): 
Keywords: 

snakes, serpents, serpientes, rump, bottom, nalgas, cohuatl

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

coa(tl), snake/serpent, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/coatl
-tzinco (locative suffix), at the little, lower, or new (place), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzinco

Karttunen’s Interpretation: 

"New Coatlan" [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations: 

"On the Small Snake" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 179)

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 42 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 94 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).

See Also: