Comaltepec (Mdz16v)

Comaltepec (Mdz16v)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph for the place name Comaltepec has two obvious elements, a round yellow circular object, representing the griddle (comalli) for cooking tortillas, and a two-tone green, bell-shaped hill or mountain (tepetl), with the usual rocky outcroppings (curling shapes on the surface, reminding us that tepetl begins with te- from tetl), and the typical yellow and red horizontal lines at the base. 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: 

Berdan and Anawalt give "On the Hill of the Comalli," which appears to be the literal translation. Might this be some kind of landscape feature that resembles a comal (in contemporary Mexican Spanish), or is it a reference to a place where comales are known to be made and sold?

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

comaltepec. puo

Gloss Normalization: 

Comaltepec, 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: 
locative (visual not silent)
noun(s)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Food, Eating, Cooking
Landscape Features
Names (places)
Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Colors: 
green (dark)
green (light)
red
yellow or golden
Shapes and Perspectives: 
bell-shaped (upright)
circle(s) (small, often concentric)
spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling
Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
2
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
front to back
Keywords: 

mountains, hills, cerros, montañas, comal, comales, griddles

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

comal(li), griddle, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/comallifdictionary
tepe(tl), hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepetl
-tepec (locative suffix), on the hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepec 

Additional Scholars' Interpretations: 

"On the Hill of the Comalli" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 181)

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 16 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 43 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: 

comalli (Mdz16v)