Huehuetlan (Mdz13v)

Huehuetlan (Mdz13v)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Huehuetlan includes the head of an old man (huehue) and, below him, a pair of front teeth (tlantli). The man's face has white hair, wrinkles on his face, and me might be toothless, as his mouth is open and we do not see any teeth apart from the two teeth that are meant to provide the phonetic "tlan" for the locative suffix, telling that this is a place. The man's head is in profile, looking to the viewer's left.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The Codex Mendoza includes examples of both old men and old women in some of the scenes of daily life, and these support the interpretation here.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

huehuetlan

Gloss Normalization:

Huehuetlan

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)

Writing Features:

compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Aging (People, Animals, Things)

Anatomy, human body parts

Gender (male)

Hair (human or animal)

Mouth/Beak Open

Names (places)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

orange/terracotta

red

white/neutral

Shapes and Perspectives:

Parts (of compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

aging, elder, envejecimiento, anciano

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

huehue, an old man, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huehue
tlan(tli), tooth/teeth, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlantli
-tlan, by, near, among, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlan

Karttunen’s Interpretation:

"Old Man Place" [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations:

"Place of Many Old Men" or "Place of the Old God" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 188)

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

"El Lugar del Hombre Viejo"

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 13 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 37 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).