Tecpatepec (Mdz27r)

Tecpatepec (Mdz27r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Tecpatepec includes two notable elements. The first is a group of three flint knives (tecpatl)] above a hill or mountain (tepetl). The flints are upright and pointed. At the top they are red and at the bottom they are white; these colors separate along a diagonal. The hill or mountain is a classic, two-tone green bell shape with curling rocky outcroppings on the slopes and a horizontal red and a yellow stripe at 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:

The flint blades may be half red to suggest their use in bloodletting, a type of religious offering. Other blades that could be compared to these include the itztli,sharp-bladed instruments of obsidian (see below). But the tecpatl blades in the Codex Mendoza are fairly uniform, whereas the itztli appear in a range of styles.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

tecpatepec. pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Tecpatepec, 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:

Gifts, Offerings, Sacrifice

Landscape Features

Names (places)

Religion (Indigenous)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

bell-shaped (upright)

diagonal or angled

horizontal

leaf, marquise, pointed oval

pointed (see also spiky)

spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling

tripartite

vertical, upright

Parts (of compounds or simplex + notation):

Number of Parts, Other / Comment:

We are counting the group of flint knives as one element, even though there are three flint knives in this compound glyph.

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

mountains, hills, cerros, montañas, pedernales

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tecpa(tl), flint knife, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tecpatl
tepe(tl), hill, mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepetl
-c (locative suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/c
-tepec, on the hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepec
itz(tli), sharp-bladed instruments of obsidian, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/itztli

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 27 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 64 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).