Malinalco (TK204r)

Malinalco (TK204r)
Compound Hieroglyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This painted compound Nahuatl hieroglyph shows the district of Malinalco (“Place of Twisted Grass”), a part of the altepetl of Tepetlaoztoc (spelled Tepetlaoxtoc today) (spelled Tepetlaoxtoc today), near modern Tetzcoco (spelled Texcoco today). It shows a hill (tepetl), serving as a silent locative (-co) and an indicator that this is a settlement. The hill is a bell shape that is painted blue. It has a horizontal red stripe at the bottom, which would be the site where a natural spring might emerge. In the middle of this blue hill is some vertical, twisted, green grass (malinalli) with two yellow flowers at the top.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

This place name does not have a gloss; the identification of the hieroglyph is supported by the work of Benjamin Johnson, Pueblos within Pueblos (2018, 55). Other examples of malinalli appear below.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Tepetlaoztoc, Codex (aka Kingsborough) (TK)

Date of Manuscript:

c. 1556

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Tepetlaoztoc, East of Lake Tetzcoco

Semantic Categories:

place name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Writing Features:

compound fully logographic

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Names (places)

Plants, Flora

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

frontal view

twisted or entwined

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

front to back

Keywords:

plantas, hierbas, torcidas, entrelazadas, topónimo, topónimos, nombres de lugares

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

malinal(li), tall or twisted grass, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/malinalli
-co, locative suffix, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/co

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

Lugar de Hierba Torcida

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

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

Image Source, Rights:

©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.

Historical Contextualizing Image: