Temi (TK207r)

Temi (TK207r)
Compound Hieroglyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This painted compound Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the personal name Temi (perhaps “Full”), attested as a man’s name. It shows a vertical arrow (mitl) piercing a stone (tetl). The arrow shows considerable detail. The fletching appears to have black-and-white feathers, possibly from a quail. The point is double. The stone also has been given some interesting detail. It is horizontal, with the curling ends on right and left. The right end is a gray color, and the left is a terracotta color. Vertical lines separate the middle from the ends, and the middle is a pink fading to white. The compound is fully phonetic.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

This is the first Temi to enter this digital collection (May 2026). Temic, Temiz, and Temillo are much more popular names for men. One wonders whether this Temi has been apocopated, although it is a perfectly reasonable “dictionary word.”

Side Note: The folio numbers are not always clear in the copy published online by the British Museum. Marc Thouvenot gives this page the number K05_A in his TLACHIA digital collection, https://tlachia.iib.unam.mx/tepetlaoztoc/K05_A.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image: 
Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription: 

.temi.

Gloss/Text Normalization: 

Temi

Gloss/Text Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Tepetlaoztoc, Codex (aka Kingsborough) (TK)
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1556

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Tepetlaoztoc, East of Lake Tetzcoco

Semantic Categories: 
personal name
phonetic dimensions
Syntax: 
noun(s)
syllable: mi (from mitl, arrow)
syllable: te/ten/teo/tel/tetl/teuh/tec/tetz/tez/tec (from tetl/stone)
Writing Features: 
simplex or element as logogram
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Gender (male)
Names (personal and/or theonym)
Stones, Rocks, Lapidary, Masonry
Weapons, Shields, Armor
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors: 
black
gray
orange/terracotta
pink
white/neutral
Shapes and Perspectives: 
frontal view
striped
Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
2
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
inherent/internal/merged
Keywords: 

flecha, flechas, piedra, piedras, nombres de hombres, men’s names, fonetismo

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

te(tl), stone, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetl
mi(tl), arrow or dart, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/mitl
temi, to fill up or be full, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/temi

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

Lleno

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

The Codex Kingsborough, also known as the Códice de Tepetlaoztoc, and the Memorial de los indios de Tepetlaoztoc, is not on display. It was transferred from the British Library and is now held by the British Museum. It is shared on line at: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Am2006-Drg-13964

Image Source, Rights: 

©The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. Please also cite the <em>Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphsem>, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities Projects, 2020-present) and this URL.

Orthography: 
intrusive period
Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: 

Temic (MH783v)

Temillo (MH762r)

Temiz (MH493r)