Tlalcuechahuayan (Mdz44r)

The visual for tlalli in this glyph is painted just one color, a purple. Sometimes tlalli has alternating purple and orange segments in the Codex Mendoza, as multiple attestations of tlalli will reveal. We see the tlalli from a birdseye view; the other elements are shown in elevation. The shell (cuechtli) hints at the verb cuechahuaya, to become moist. (Note the turbinate shape of the cuechtli, which may be the shell associated with the atl glyph; it is slightly different from the cilin, more turbinate.) The rainwater falling on the land also supports the reading of the verb cuechahuaya, as the land would become moist from the rain. This condition would be important for agriculture and may therefore refer to local conditions. Incidentally, the word for rain (quiyahuitl) does not have a phonetic value here, only a ideographic role, although atl (water) provides an "a" sound that combines with "cuech" to lead us to the verb. The -hua- of possession on containment and the -yan locative suffix are often not depicted visually, but perhaps here the landscape provides a semantic locative.

The locative suffix -yan is one that attaches to verbs and indicates customary action. (Source: Frances Karttunen, "Critique of glyph catalogue in Berdan and Anawalt edition of Codex Mendoza," unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.) So, this is a place where land customarily gets wet, perhaps floods regularly or has lots of rainfall.