Tenanco (TK207r)

Tenanco (TK207r)
Compound Hieroglyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This painted compound Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the place name Tenanco (“At the Wall”). The compound has three elements, and the reading order is from left to right. The name starts with the lips (tenantli), which stand for the phonetic syllable at the start of the name, Te-. Moving right, the next element is a circular stone wall (tenantli) in red, terracotta, and white. The stones have their usual curling edges. Inside the circle is the pottery jug or pot (comitl), which supplies the phonetic syllable for the locative suffix -co.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

In this digital collection, we are tracking the use of phonetic hieroglyphic writing. One can do a search for all the examples that have some degree of phoneticism. Go to the Advanced Search, use the Writing Features dropdown list, and ask to see, for instance, “writing fully phonographic.” The manuscripts from the area of Tetzcoco are especially notable for this. The Tenanco glyphs from other regions, below, are very different from this one.

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: 

tenaco

Gloss/Text Normalization: 

Tenanco

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: 
phonetic dimensions
place name
Syntax: 
noun(s)
syllable: co/con/com (from comitl, pot/jug)
syllable: te/ten/teo (from tentli/lips)
Writing Features: 
compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Anatomy, human body parts
Names (places)
Pottery, Earthenware
Stones, Rocks, Lapidary, Masonry
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors: 
orange/terracotta
red
white/neutral
Shapes and Perspectives: 
frontal view
spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling
Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
3
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
left to right
Keywords: 

pared, paredes, piedra, piedras, jarra, barro, labios, nombres de lugares, topónimo, topónimos, fonetismo

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

ten(tli), lips, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tentli
tenan(tli), wall or rampart, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tenantli
com(itl), pottery jug or pot, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/comitl

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

Junto al Muro

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: 
dropped "n"
Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: 

Tenanco (CmpRG)

Teotenanco (Mdz10r)

Tenanco (TK207v)