Texalpan (TK208r)

Texalpan (TK208r)
Compound Hieroglyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This painted compound Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the place name Texalpan (“On the Gravel”). It has three elements, and the reading order is upward. At the bottom, it starts with a pair of lips (tentli) in profile, facing right, which provide the phonetic syllable for the Te- start to the place name. Moving up, there are six grains of sand (xalli), which provides the next phonetic syllable, -xal-, of the place name. Together, the lips and the sand supply the phonetic dimensions -texal- from texalli, referring to pebbles or gravel. Finally, the locative suffix -pan derives from the swallowtail flag (pamitl) flying toward the viewer’s left. The result is a fully phonographic compound hieroglyph.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

As of May 2026, one other hieroglyphic example of texalli appears in this digital collection. See the personal name Texal, below.

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 K06_A in his TLACHIA digital collection, https://tlachia.iib.unam.mx/tepetlaoztoc/K06_A.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image: 
Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription: 

desalpā

Gloss/Text Normalization: 

Texalpan

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: pa/pan/pal (from panitl/pamitl, flag)
syllable: te/ten/teo (from tentli/lips)
Writing Features: 
compound fully phonographic
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Anatomy, human body parts
Flags, banners
Names (places)
Stones, Rocks, Lapidary, Masonry
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Shapes and Perspectives: 
facing left
facing right
profile view
Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
3
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
upward
Keywords: 

guijarro, guijarros, piedra, piedras, arena, labios, banner, banners, bandera, banderas, 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
xal(li), sand, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xalli
texal(li), gravel or pebbles, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/texalli
-pan, locative suffix, in or on, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/pan

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

En la Grava

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: 
"d" for t
"s" for x
Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: 

Texal (MH668r)