Huei Atotonilco (Mdz28r)

Huei Atotonilco (Mdz28r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Huei Atotonilco shows a ceramic pot with water spilling over the top. The pot is set on hearth stones (tetl) glyphs, but not read aloud in this case], suggesting it is being heated over a fire, bringing it to boil over. The water is a standard flow of turquoise blue with lines of current and two white turbinate shells and three white droplets/beads splashing off the flow. The pot is a terracotta color with dark gray or black at the base. The stones are a standard purple and terracotta, with wavy stripes.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

In the book, Estructura político-territorial del imperio tenochca, 2016) Pedro Carrasco explains that this place name came to be Atotonilco el Grande in Spanish. The Atotonilco with the smaller glyph was Atotonilco de Tula.

The place name may not intend to refer to cooking at all, but the images brings to the fore the concept of hot water (atotonilli). The point may be to refer to hot springs. The intensifier (huei) is implied by the increased size of the pot. Hence, the thrust may refer to either a larger community near the hot springs or larger hot springs. Credit goes to Gordon Whittaker (2021, 71) for noticing that some of the pots are larger when representing Atotonilco, and therefore building into that image the intensifier/adjective in two cases, including this one and the one on folio 8 recto. I conclude that this is a compound glyph, given that the huei and the atotonilli are combined here.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

atotonilco. pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Atotonilco, 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:

adjective

noun(s)

phrase or sentence

Writing Features:

compound fully logographic

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Ceramics, Pottery

Containers, Dishes, Eating Utensils

Fire, Tobacco, Incense, Smoke

Food, Eating, Cooking

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

purple (light)/lavender

white/neutral

Shapes and Perspectives:

circle, circular or rounded

circle(s) (small, often concentric)

magnifier/multiplier (visual)

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

inherent/internal/merged

Keywords:

hot water, waters, hot springs, Huey Atotonilco, shells

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

huei, large, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huei
atotonil(li), hot water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atotonilli
totonil(ia), to heat something, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/totonilia
-co (locative suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/co
a(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

"Gran Atotonilco" (hoy, Atotonilco El Grande)

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 13 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 66 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).