Quimichtepec (Mdz16r)

Quimichtepec (Mdz16r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Quimichtepec has two main elements, a mouse (quimichin) and, below it, a hill or mountain (tepetl). The mouse is shown in profile, facing to the viewer's left. Its coat is textured. It is shown here in a purple or gray color, with a white belly, chin, and paws. The hill is a standard, two-tone green, bell shape, with rocky outcroppings on the slopes, and a horizontal red and horizontal yellow stripe near the base. 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:

Frances Berdan and Patricia Anawalt (1992, vol. 1, 204) suggest that the reading might be "city Sentries" (quimichtin), and the rodent is there to provide the phonetic value. The Florentine Codex links mice to eavesdroppers and, by extension, merchant spies, according to an article by Ian Mursell in Mexicolore. Still, Karttunen holds to the interpretation of Mouse Hill, and consciously does not embrace the reading of sentries.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

quimichtepec.pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Quimichtepec, 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)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

bell-shaped (upright)

dotted, granular, textured

facing left

profile view

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

mountains, hills, montañas, cerros, mice, ratones

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

quimich(in), a mouse or rodent, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/quimichin
tepe(tl), hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepetl
-tepec, on the hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepec
-c (locative suffix), in or on, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/c

Karttunen’s Interpretation:

"Mouse Hill" [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations:

"On the Hill of the Rats" or "On the Hill of the City Sentries" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, 2024)

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

"El Cerro del Ratón"

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie

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).