Tepechpan (Mdz20r)

Tepechpan (Mdz20r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Tepechpan shows a house or building in profile, facing to the right, in the standard white color with T-shaped terracotta beams at the entrance. The building is full of rectangles and right angles. Below the building is a horizontal foundation (tepechtli) that is part stone (tetl) and part woven mat (petlatl) or rug (pechtli). The stone part of the foundation has the usual alternating purple and terracotta orange wavy lines and a curling rocky outcropping at the bottom. The mat has the classic yellow, herringbone weave.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The term for a stone foundation (tepechtli) combines tetl) (stone) and pechtli (rug). This foundation pertains to the building pictured (calli), which is not read as part of the place name. However, the building sits on (-pan) the foundation. Another element that appears but is not read is the handwoven mat petlatl), which may underscore the phonetic "pe" of pechtli, or, add to the meaning of "rug" that pechtli also represents. Another Tepechpan (below) from the Codex Mendoza shows a leg and foot standing on the foundation.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

tepechpan, pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Tepechpan, 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:

graphic syllepsis

place name

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Architecture, Construction, Buildings

Names (places)

Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods

Stones, Rocks, Lapidary, Masonry

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

orange/terracotta

purple (light)/lavender

white/neutral

yellow or golden

Shapes and Perspectives:

spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling

wavy

woven

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

upward

left to right

multidirectional

Reading Order, Notes:

The elements that enter into the place name are largely at the bottom, but they go from left to right and, if the building implies the locative, then the reading ends with an upward direction.

Keywords:

stones, piedras, mats, petates, bases arquitectónicos, cimientos, pisos, flooring, floors

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tepech(tli), flooring, foundation, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepechtli
te(tl), stone, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetl
pech(tli), rug, foundation, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/pechtli
-pan (locative suffix), on, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/pan

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 20 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 50 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).