Teacalco (Mdz21v)
This compound glyph for the place name Teacalco, consists of two obvious elements, a stone (tetl) with water (atl) in it. The water is the usual turquoise blue color, with black lines of current, two white water droplets/beads and two white turbinate shells splashing off the top. The stone has the usual wavy, alternating lines of purple and terracotta color, and curling outcroppings in two places along the bottom. The overall shape is primarily horizontal, and nearly oval, nearly trapezoidal. The locative suffix (-co) is not shown visually.
Stephanie Wood
The stone has the shape of a boat, which could be intended to provide the phonetic "acal" of acalli, boat or house on the water.
Stephanie Wood
teacalco. puo
Teacalco, pueblo
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
Possibly only two elements (stone and water), but a third is possible (acalli, boat).
agua, piedras, canoas, lanchas
![](https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Teacalco21v.jpeg?itok=JhRpfYqL)
te(tl), rock or stone, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetl
a(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atl
acal(li), boat or canoe, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/acalli
cal(li), house or building, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/calli
-co (locative suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/co
Codex Mendoza, folio 21 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 53 of 188.
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).