Tetepanco (Mdz27r)

Tetepanco (Mdz27r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph for the place name (as glossed), Tetepanco, includes two elements. One consists of two stones [tetl with alternating, wavy lines of purple and orange. The other element, above the stones, is a wall or construction (tepantli) that is a block of rectangular stones. These stones are lavender at the top, fading to white at the bottom. The pair of teeth (tlantli)--uppers with red gums--would normally provide a phonetic visual for the locative suffix "tlan," but we do not have evidence that the locative is "tlan" rather than "co" (and the latter is not shown visually).

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

tetepanco. puo

Gloss Normalization: 

Tetepanco, 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 (not visual)
noun(s)
reduplication (in gloss/text)
reduplication (visual)
Writing Features: 
compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Anatomy, human body parts
Architecture, Construction, Buildings
Names (places)
Stones, Rocks, Lapidary, Masonry
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Colors: 
orange/terracotta
purple
purple (light)/lavender
red
white/neutral
Shapes and Perspectives: 
wavy
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
downward
upward
multidirectional
Reading Order, Notes: 

The reading starts with the stones at the bottom, then rises to the wall, and then comes back down to the teeth (although the teeth are actually silent).

Keywords: 

stones, walls, piedras, murallas

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

te(tl), stone or rock, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetl
tepan(tli), wall or construction, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepantli
-co (locative suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/co
tlan(tli), tooth/teeth, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlantli
-tlan (locative suffix), by, near, among, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlan

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).

See Also: 

tetl (Mdz48r)