Ecatzinco (TK204v)
This compound Nahuatl hieroglyph for the place name Ecatzinco (perhaps “Place of Revered Wind”) has four elements. It begins with a black bean (etl), which provides the phonetic start to the place name, -e-. Swirling up from the bean are dotting lines that point to wind or air movement (ecatl or ehecatl). Above that is a profile view of the rear end (tzintli) of a human male facing to the right. Finally, at the top is a pottery jug (comitl). The locative suffix, -tzinco-, derives phonetically from these final two elements. This suffix can point to a spin-off community, such as “New ___,” or a nearby smaller settlement, such as, “Little ___” or “Lower ___.”
Stephanie Wood
The phonetic dimensions of this compound are considerable, along the lines of the Vergara Codex or the Codex of Santa María Asunción, both also from the region of Tepetlaoztoc (spelled Tepetlaoxtoc today). This is the first glyph for Ecatzinco to enter this digital collection as of April 2026, and the spelling of its gloss is somewhat unusual. But many of its elements are well attested. The contextualizing image for this glyph shows that it is a small community with about forty households. The noble, who is dressed in what is apparently a cape (tilmatli) worn by leaders, nevertheless has what seems to be a huictli, agricultural tool at his side. So, this is apparently a small farming community.
Side Note: The folio numbers are not always clear in the copy published online by the British Museum. Marc Thouvenot gives this page the number K02_B in his TLACHIA digital collection, https://tlachia.iib.unam.mx/tepetlaoztoc/K02_B.
Stephanie Wood
hiecatzinco
Ecatzinco
Stephanie Wood
c. 1556
Jeff Haskett-Wood
frijol, frijoles, comida, olla, jarra, viento, aliento, aire, trasero, topónimo, topónimos, nombres de lugares, fonetismo
eca(tl), air or breath, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ecatl
eheca(tl), wind, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ehecatl
e(tl), bean, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/etl
tzin(tli), buttocks or rear end, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzintli
-tzin, a reverential suffix, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzin
com(itl), a pottery jug, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/comitl
-co (locative suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/co
Lugar del Viento Reverenciado
Stephanie Wood
The Codex Kingsborough, also known as the Códice de Tepetlaoztoc, and the Memorial de los indios de Tepetlaoztoc, is not on display. It was transferred from the British Library and is now held by the British Museum. It is shared on line at: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Am2006-Drg-13964
©The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. Please also cite the <em>Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphsem>, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities Projects, 2020-present) and this URL.
