Mazahuacan (TK208v)

Mazahuacan (TK208v)
Compound Hieroglyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This painted compound Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the place name Mazahuacan (“Place with Deer”). It has two elements, and the reading order is right to left. On the right is the head of a deer (mazatl) in profile, facing right. Its mouth is closed, but its visible eye is open. It has a visible ear and a three-pronged antler. Its coat is mottled and colored brown. Left and slightly below the deer is a three-pronged spray of water with lines of current (movement) and two turbinate shells and one droplet or bead at the end of each short stream. The water is a somewhat darker color than the deer. It serves as a phonetic indicator of the “a” sound in this place name, but whether it refers to an -a- in Maza-, -hua-, or -can, is not clear. At least one of the -hua- and -can syllables are not shown visually. An additional feature of the deer that calls for attention is its neck, which has a scalloped edge with four rounded pieces of skin hanging down.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

A few other animal heads in this collection have a similar edge on their necks, as though they have been severed in an uneven way. See below. All of the others come from the Codex Telleriano-Remensis. In addition to the scalloped edges on their necks, they have red and yellow coloring that may point to their interior organs or the flesh and fat that become visible inside animals and humans when they are cut into. The other Mazahuacan in this collection that comes from the Codex Tepetlaoztoc shows only a deer head, but it also has the scalloped edge to its neck.

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 K06_B in his TLACHIA digital collection, https://tlachia.iib.unam.mx/tepetlaoztoc/K06_B.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image:

Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription:

mazavacā

Gloss/Text Normalization:

Mazahuacan

Gloss/Text 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:

phonetic dimensions

place name

Syntax:

noun(s)

syllable: a/atl (from atl)

Writing Features:

compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Animals: Deer

Movement

Names (places)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

brown

tan

white/neutral

Shapes and Perspectives:

facing right

profile view

tripartite

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

right to left

Keywords:

animales, agua, nombres de lugares, topónimo, topónimos, fonetismo

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

maza(tl), deer, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/hua
hua-, singular possessive, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/hua
-can, locative suffix, where, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/can-2

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

Donde Tienen Venado

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.

Orthography:

"v" for u, uh, or hu

Historical Contextualizing Image: