Pipiyoltepec (Mdz16r)

Pipiyoltepec (Mdz16r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph, standing for the place name Pipiyoltepec, has two prominent elements. One is the mountain honey bee (pipiyolin) and the other is a hill or mountain (tepetl). The bee flies over or sits on top of the hill. Its head and body are yellow, and its wings are an orange or terracotta color. The head seems to have a significant beak or stinger below the one eye that is visible (given the profile view, facing to the viewer's left). Two curving antennae appear on the top of the head. The hill or mountain is a classic glyph with a two-tone green bell shape, yellow and red horizontal stripes near the base, and curling, rocky outcroppings on the slopes. The locative suffix (-c) (as given in the gloss) is not shown visually, but it combines with -tepe- to form -tepec, a visual locative suffix meaning "on the hill" or "on the mountain."

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The bee could be singular or plural in the place name. The Pipi- is not necessarily a plural-reduplication. Karttunen suggests that the name of the bee may relate to the verb pihpi, to gather, as in gathering nectar and pollen.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

pipiyoltepec.pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Pipiyoltepec, 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:

locative (visual not silent)

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Animals, incl. Birds, Bugs, Insects, Reptiles, etc.

Landscape Features

Names (places)

Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

bell-shaped (upright)

facing left

profile view

spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

mountains, hills, montañas, cerros, bees, abejas

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

pipiyol(in), mountain honey bee, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/pipiyolin
-tepec, on the hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepec

Karttunen’s Interpretation:

"On the Hill of the Mountain Honey Bees" (concurring with Berdan and Anawalt) [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations:

"On the Hill of the Mountain Honey Bees" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, 199)

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

"El Cerro (o la Montaña) de la Abeja Montesa de Miel"

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood, drawing from Alonso de Molina

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 16 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 42 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).