tecpantli (Mdz71r)

The gloss is best considered in light of the contextualizing image, for it tells us that the compound notation stands for 70. This means each flag counts twenty years, as three times 20 is 60, and another ten ones (above), come to 70. It is a challenge to differentiate between the panitl (or pamitl), pantli, and tecpantli, for they look very much alike most of the time. For now, when the banner has an association with a number, we are using pantli, and when it is a locative for a place name, we are using panitl. Apparently panitl was more common in "Mexico, the Tepanec heartland, and perhaps Colhuacan and Chalco," and pamitl in "northern and eastern flanks of the Valley of Mexico." See: Jorge Klor de Alva, in The Work of Bernardino de Sahagún: Pioneer Ethnographer of Sixteenth-century Aztec Mexico (Albany, NY: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, the University at Albany, State University of New York, 1988), 323.