Tlachco (Mdz36r)
This simplex glyph stands both for the place name Tlachco and the glyph for ball court (tlachtli). It is a horizontal capital "i" (in other words, the shape of a capital "i" that is lying on its side). It is outlined in yellow. It has four quadrants. The lower right section is yellow, to the left of that the quadrant is dark green, above that, in the upper left quadrant, it is red, and in the upper right quadrant it is turquoise in color. In the middle of the court there are two terracotta-colored half circles. They have an outer ring that is colored orange or terracotta, and the internal part is purple.
Stephanie Wood
While the four colors remain the same, the location of these colors does vary across several examples we have for Tlachco/tlachtli in this database. That said, there are also some purple ball courts and one that is dark gray. The colors of the rings do vary somewhat, and not all the courts have rings in the middle (through which the ball would pass). For more on the Mesoamerican ball game, please see the Mexicolore articles on the topic.
Stephanie Wood
tlachco.puo
Tlachco, pueblo (Taxco, today)
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
ballcourt, ball game, ballgame, capital letter I shape, balls, courts, pelotas, canchas, games juegos
tlach(tli), ball court, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlachtli
-co (locative suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/co
Tlach-co = "En el sitio del juego de pelota"
Miguel León-Portilla, "Los nombres de lugar en náhuatl," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 15 (1982), 42.
Codex Mendoza, folio 36 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 82 of 188.
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).
