Timal (MH569v)
This simplex glyph for the personal name Timal ("Pus" or "Gentle Woman," attested here as a man's name) shows two concentric circles. The ring between the two is segmented and has some red or pink colorant. The inner circles has an integrated cross (+) that is reminiscent of the glyph for teocuitlatl (gold). This quincunx shape is somewhat different from the glyph for Timal from MH516 (below).
Stephanie Wood
In the Historia Tolteca Chichimeca of 1598, Tezozomoc mentions a Toltec named Timal, who was known to have super necromantic powers. Oxford defines necromantic as "relating to witchcraft or black magic, especially the supposed practice of communicating with the dead." [Wimmer 2004 quotes Tezozomoc, and this is published in the Gran Diccionario Náhuatl, https://gdn.iib.unam.mx/diccionario/timal/175522.] The religious prejudice in choosing the term should not overshadow the take-away that Timal was perceived to have special religious or ritual abilities, which may enter into the glyphs for the name Timal, taken by various men of central Mexico perhaps in honor of the famous Toltec man.
In some vocabulary terms found in the dictionary, the element -timal- leans toward something like "full of pride" or "glorified by others." These glyphs for the name Timal deserve further study.
Stephanie Wood
1560
sores, pus, blood, inflammation, llagas, sangre, inflamación, pústulas, excrescence, nombres de hombres
timal(li), pus or evidence of an infection, or, a gentle woman, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/timalli
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 569v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=218&st=image.
This manuscript is hosted by the Library of Congress and the World Digital Library; used here with the Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SAq 3.0).
