Tizatepec (Mdz21v)

Tizatepec (Mdz21v)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph for the place name Tizatepec shows a black-line drawing of a mountain shape, white in the middle except for many black dots (representing chalk, or tizatl). Below the mountain we see a horizontal stone (tetl), halfway hidden by the mountain. Rather than the usual alternating purple and orange/terracotta wavy stripes, these are orange and white. The locative suffix (-c) (as given in the gloss) is not shown visually, but it combines with -tepe- to form -tepec, a visual locative suffix meaning "on the hill" or "on the mountain."

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The added stone is not really required for the phonetic reading of this place name, but it may be there to explain the dots, for instance, to clarify that they are not chia seeds but a stone-like substance, chalk (tizatl).

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
place name
Syntax: 
locative (visual not silent)
noun(s)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Landscape Features
Names (places)
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Colors: 
orange/terracotta
red
white/neutral
yellow or golden
Shapes and Perspectives: 
bell-shaped (upright)
dotted, granular, textured
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
inherent/internal/merged
Keywords: 

mountains, hills

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

tiza(tl), chalk, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tizatl
te(tl), stone or rock, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetl
tepe(tl), hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepetl
-tepec, on the hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepec 

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 21 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 53 of 188.

Image Source, Rights: 

The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).