Tezcatzonco (TK208r)
This painted compound Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the place name Tetzcatzonco (perhaps “On the Mirror”). The compound has four elements, and the reading order is downward. It starts with a black mirror (tezcatl) with a white rim around it. Below that is a head of human hair (tzontli) minus the head. The hair is also tied into a standing ponytail (also tzontli). This complements the hair, reinforcing the reading of the -tzon- syllable. Below the hair is a pottery jug or pot (comitl) with three visible handles, a narrowing near the top, and a flared opening. This element supplies the -co- phonetic syllable which represents the -co locative suffix in the place name.
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.
Stephanie Wood
Mirrors (tezcatl) are very common elements in both personal and place names, as an Advanced Search for glyph names containing “tezca” will show. As of May 2026, this collection includes a personal name, Tezcatzon, which is much like this place name. A puzzling Tezcatzon is given in this Tepetlaoztoc codex and on the same page (f. 208r), but this one is not clear as to whether it is a personal name or a place name. It does omit the -co locative suffix (in the form of the pottery jug), but it is in the location on the page that suggests a place name. And yet, just above it, is this place name, Tezcatzonco.
Stephanie Wood
tezcatzonco
Tezcatzonco
Stephanie Wood
c. 1556
Jeff Haskett-Wood
espejos, cabeza, cabezas, pelo, cabello, adverbio, nombres de lugares, topónimos, topónimo, fonetismo, earthenware, ceramic, ceramics, cerámicas, jug, pot, olla, jarra, jarro, vessel, vessels, vasija de cerámica, cántaro, cántaros, xoctli, xoctepi, huicolli, atlacuihuani, tecomitl, tecontontli, apilolli
tezca(tl), mirror, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tezcatl
tzon(tli), a head, hair, or a warrior’s standing ponytail, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzontli
tzonco, on top of, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzonco
com(itl), pottery jug or pot, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/comitl
posiblemente, Encima del Espejo
Stephanie Wood
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
©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.
