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 or Text Image:

Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription:

comaltepec. pu^o

Gloss/Text Normalization:

Comaltepec, pueblo

Gloss/Text 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:

Shapes and Perspectives:

bell-shaped (upright)

circle(s) (small, often concentric)

spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

front to back

Keywords:

mountains, hills, cerros, montañas, comal, comales, griddles, nombres de lugares

Museum/Rare Book/Realia Comparisons:

Museum/Rare Book/Realia Notes:

This especially large clay comalli was photographed in the Ancestral restaurant in Xochimilco, Oaxaca city. Pre-contact cuisine and cooking methods are extremely popular at this time, and Michelin Guide mentions are being given to some of the restaurants who practice this. Stephanie Wood, 22January 2026.

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).