Tetepantlan (TK207r)

Tetepantlan (TK207r)
Compound Hieroglyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This painted compound Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the place name Tetepantlan (perhaps, “Near the Stone Wall”). The compound has four elements, and the reading order is multidirectional. The name starts with a reduplication, Tete-. These two syllables are covered by the phonetic syllables that come from lips (tentli) and stone (tetl). The -pan phonetic syllable that is also the locative suffix derives from the red swallowtail flag (pamitl) at the top. The key semantic contribution for this place name comes from word tepantli (wall) which stems from a combination of two of the syllables just mentioned. Stone (tetl) is the other significant semantic contributor.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The place name Tetepanco (perhaps, “At the Stone Wall”), which comes from the Codex Mendoza (folio 27 recto), is interesting for comparison. It offers a wall that may be made of adobe bricks and another row of stone glyphs.

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: 

tetepantlā

Gloss/Text Normalization: 

Tetepantlan

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)
reduplication (in gloss/text)
reduplication (visual)
Writing Features: 
compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Anatomy, human body parts
Flags, banners
Names (places)
Stones, Rocks, Lapidary, Masonry
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors: 
orange/terracotta
red
white/neutral
Shapes and Perspectives: 
dotted, granular, textured
facing left
frontal view
profile view
Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
4
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
multidirectional
Keywords: 

muros, piedras, banner, banners, bandera, banderas, nombres de lugares, topónimo, topónimos

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

pam(itl), flag, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/pamitl
te(tl), stone, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetl
tlan(tli), teeth, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlantli
ten(tli), lips, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tentli
-tlan, locative suffix, near, by, among, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlan

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

Cerca del Muro de Piedra

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.

Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: 

Tetepanco (Mdz27r)