Tlaxcallan (Mdz42r)

Tlaxcallan (Mdz42r)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This simplex glyph that appears in the Codex Mendoza with the gloss "tlaxcaltecatl," to indicate a man's ethnicity, also provides the place name Tlaxcallan, with which he is associated. (See the historical contextualization image.) It also provides the visual and phonetic element -tlaxcal, from tlaxcalli, tortilla. The glyph is a round black-line drawing with parallel, vertical, black hash marks, adding texture, and a (left) hand in the middle that reminds us of the action of slapping the dough into the thin, round, corn cakes that come to be tortillas. The hand is a yellow-tan with white fingernails. It is upright.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The hand is a semantic indicator that clarifies that the tortilla (which is patted out with the hands) is indicated by the circle that is just larger than a hand in diameter. In some contexts, the hand could convey a phonetic "ma" (relating to hand, maitl, or the verb to take/grab/capture/hunt, ma. But this is not the case here. The hash marks on the tortilla are similar to the marks on ears of corn that can be seen in the thumbnail for cintli below. They may be iconographic for maize/corn--as opposed to flour, for example, which became a grain used for tortillas only after the introduction of wheat by Europeans. Of course, corn remained the favorite grain for tortillas in the central areas even after contact. The thrust of the place name is "Place of Many Tortillas." When combining tlaxcal- with -tlan, the latter changes to -lan to combine with the final "l" of the root, resulting in the double "l."

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

tlaxcaltecatl

Gloss Normalization: 

Tlaxcaltecatl

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
Shapes and Perspectives: 
Keywords: 

tortillas, maíz, maize

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 42 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 94 of 188.

Image Source, Rights: 

Original manuscript is held by the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1; used here with the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0)

Historical Contextualizing Image: