tianquiztli (YacRG)
This is a simplex glyph of a marketplace (tianquiztli) located in the town today called Yecapixtla (Morelos). It appears on the map of the Relación Geográfica de Acapistla dating from 1581. The marketplace is bounded by four thick walls, oiutlined in red and colored in brown. There are two openings or gateways shown in this bird’s-eye view through which a red-bordered road passes. A fountain (glossed in Spanish as a “fuente;” see below) is sited somewhat off-center in the marketplace. This element—which might have been referred to by local Nahuatl speakers as either atl or ameyalli--is represented by a circular swirling depiction of blue water with black wavy lines, a sort of black spiral vortex in its center. There are six small red-outlined concentric circles that represent droplets, precious gems, or both. This element adds a more obvious Indigenous feature (see below) to an otherwise rather plain representation of the plaza-like marketplace.
Robert Haskett
The marketplace is located to the left of the walled atrio of Yecapixtla’s Augustinian church. This is a large building presented in frontal view with a peaked roof surmounted by a cross. It has a tall bell tower on its right-hand side that near its top has a hanging gray bell and its black clapper visible through an arched opening. The church is colored in pink with darker reds along the edges of its sections, probably to give a suggestion of its contours; this undoubtedly evidence of some Spanish influence. The church is glossed “la villa de acapiztla yglecia” and thus stands as a kind of a European-style place glyph for the community (see the contextualizing image). For more information about this RG see Mundy (1996).
Robert Haskett
tianguez y una fuente que ay en el
tianquiz[tli] y una fuente que hay en el
Rober Haskett
1581
Robert Haskett
markets, marketplaces, mercados, tianquis, fountains, fuentes
Map of the Acapistla RG. This important Indigenous community, part of the Cortés Marquesado del Valle jurisdiction and one of the s0-called Quatro Villas, was glossed in various ways over time (Acapixtla, Acapiztla, Yecapiztlan, Yacapixtlan, Yacapichtlan, Ayacapitztlan, etc.). The modern spelling is Yecapixtla.
tianquiz(tli), market, plaza, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tianquiztli
ameyal(li), natural spring, fountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ameyalli
el tianquis, el mercado
Robert Haskett
Relación de Acapistla – University of Texas Libraries Collections, 1580-11-15. https://collections.lib.utexas.edu/catalog/utblac:740d6d5b-280a-45f4-a3b...
Materials that are in the public domain (such as most of the maps in the PCL Map Collection) are not copyrighted, and no permission is needed to copy them. You may download them and use them as you wish. The image appears here courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin. If you do publish anything from this database, please cite the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs.
