Tlacopan (Osu13r)

Tlacopan (Osu13r)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This simplex glyph for the place name Tlacopan (“On the Osier Twigs”) shows a colorful plant (tlacotl in Nahuatl). The locative suffix -pan (on or in) is not shown visually. The plant consists of three stems, each one with a red flower with at least three petals per flower at the top and six to eight green leaves coming off the thick green stems. At the base of the plant, five red curling roots are visible.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

Osier twigs were sometimes used by priests associated with Tlazolteotl to do penance. The twigs (or the arrows that were made from them) were used for piercing the tongue and ears in a blood-letting ritual act. (See Peter DeRoo, History of America before Columbus, 1900, 489, and Hartley Burr Alexander, Latin American, The Mythology of All Races, Vol 11, 1920, 78.)

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Source Manuscript: 
Osuna, Codex (Osu)
Date of Manuscript: 

1551–1565

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
place name
Syntax: 
noun(s)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Flowers
Gifts, Offerings, Sacrifice
Names (places)
Wood, wooden things
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors: 
green (light)
red
Shapes and Perspectives: 
frontal view
roots are visible
vertical, upright
Keywords: 

plantas, flores, palos, ramitas, ofertas, flebotomía

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

Tlacopan, an important altepetl near Mexico City, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlacopan
tlaco(tl), osier twigs, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlacotl
-pan (locative suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/pan

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

la ramita de mimbre

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Library of Congress Online Catalog and the World Digital Library, Osuna Codex, or Painting of the Governor, Mayors, and Rulers of Mexico (Pintura del Gobernador, Alcaldes y Regidores de México), https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_07324/. The original is located in the Biblioteca Nacional de España.

Image Source, Rights: 

"The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright or other restrictions in the World Digital Library Collection. Absent any such restrictions, these materials are free to use and reuse." But please cite the Biblioteca Nacional de España and this Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs if you use any of these images here or refer to the content on this page, providing the URL.

Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: 

Tlacopan (Mdz5v)