Nacochtlan (Mdz42r)
This simplex glyph for the place name Nacochtlan is an ear with a plug or flare (nacochtli) in the lobe. The plug/flare is shown in a profile view, with part showing in front of the ear and part behind it. The flared end is on the viewer's right. The plug/flare is painted turquoise blue, the color of the precious stone. The locative suffix (-tlan) is not shown visually in this glyph.
Stephanie Wood
The gloss supports the reading of the locative suffix of -tlan (Karttunen) and not -tla or -tlah (which would be the "many," i.e. abundance, that Berdan and Anawalt interpreted).
See Mexicolore for a study of ear plugs.
Stephanie Wood
nacochtlan.puo
Nacochtlan, pueblo
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
ear plugs, earplugs, orejeras, jewelry, joyas
![](https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Nacochtlan42rSIMPLEX.jpeg?itok=0c9qo0PW)
nacoch(tli), ear plug or ear flare, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/nacochtli
-tlan (locative suffix), place, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlan
"Earplug Place" [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]
"Place of Many Earplugs" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 194)
"El Lugar de la Orejera"
Stephanie Wood (borrowing from Alonso de Molina's translation of nacochtli)
Codex Mendoza, folio 42 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 94 of 188.
Original manuscript is held by the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1; used here with the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0)