Tlaltecatl (MH676r)

Tlaltecatl (MH676r)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Tlaltecatl (perhaps “Person of the Land” or “One from Tlallan”) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows what looks like a plate of a granular substance. But the gloss would suggest the visual elements represent dirt or land (tlalli).

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The name Tlaltecatl--or its reverential version Tlaltecatzin--was widespread in the central highlands. According to Miguel León-Portilla (In the Language of Kings, 2002:79), a fourteenth-century poet named Tlaltecatzin lived in Cuauhchinanco, Puebla, apparently dominated by the Chichimecs of Tetzcoco. He may have been a predecessor of Nezahualcoyotl. The Digital Florentine Codex includes a reference to the first ruler of Tetzcoco as a Tlaltecatzin (Book 8, f. 7r, https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/book/8/folio/7r). Michel Graulich (Moctezuma, 2014:lxxxix) refers to a Tlaltecatzin who was a king of Tlacopan (Tacuba today). John Bierhorst mentions these and other famous men named Tlaltecatzin in his A Nahuatl-English Dictionary and Concordance to the Cantares Mexicanos (1985:338).

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Source Manuscript:

Huexotzinco, Matrícula de (MH)

Date of Manuscript:

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Huejotzingo, Puebla

Semantic Categories:

personal name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Writing Features:

simplex or element as logogram

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Gender (male)

Land Parcels, Use, Issues

Names (personal and/or theonym)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

black & white drawing (no color)

Shapes and Perspectives:

dotted, granular, textured

horizontal

Keywords:

tierra, parcelas, agricultura, nombres de hombres

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tlal(li), land, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlalli
-tecatl (affiliation suffix), person from…, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tecatl
Tlaltecatzin, a famous name, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlaltecatzin

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

posiblemente, Uno de la Tierra, o Uno de Tlallan

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 676r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=432&st=image.

Image Source, Rights:

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).

Historical Contextualizing Image: