Magdalena (BMapH46)

Magdalena (BMapH46)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name, Magdalena, taken from the Christian Bible and pertaining to a woman, includes two elements. One appears to be an agave plant (metl) with five branches spiking upward. Alternatively, this may be a hand (maitl) with its five fingers spread open. Whichever noun this is meant to be, it must be a phonetic indicator that the name starts with Ma-. Below this appears to be a grinding stone (metlatl), which is also possibly phonetic but also has a semantic value in that it has a strong association with women, given that women spent many hours grinding maize with which to feed their families.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

Further research or consultation is required to be clear about the interpretation of the elements. But this is a baptismal name that comes from the colonizers’ religion. Nahua glyphs exist for a number of Spanish given names and surnames, as shown below.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

This glyph is not glossed; the transliteration of the glyph comes from Gordon Whittaker’s contribution to the study by Mary E. Miller and Barbara E. Mundy (2012).

Source Manuscript:

Beinecke Map (BMap)

Date of Manuscript:

c. 1565

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City or the Valley of Mexico

Semantic Categories:

personal name

Writing Features:

compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Anatomy, human body parts

Gender (female)

Names (personal and/or theonym)

Plants, Flora

Religion (Christian)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

gray

green (light)

Shapes and Perspectives:

profile view

spiky

Other Cultural Influences:

Spanish/European

Keywords:

magueyes, manos, metates, nombres de mujeres

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

ma(itl), hand, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/maitl
me(tl), agave plant, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/metl
metla(tl), grinding stone, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/metlatl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

Magdalena

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Beinecke Map/Codex Reese, section 8, no. 46 in the Whittaker study (published in the Miller/Mundy book, 2012), and see the original at: https://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3600017

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).

Historical Contextualizing Image: