Tlaxcallan (TR28r)

Tlaxcallan (TR28r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Tlaxcallan has two main elements. The key element is a tortilla (tlaxcalli), a black-line circle with dots of texturing. Below that is a tall, green, bell-shaped mountain or hill (tepetl) with a horizontal white bar near its base. This landscape feature plays a role as a semantic indicator for the locative suffix "next to" (-tlan, which changes to -lan when following the final "l" of the root of tlaxcalli). The thrust of the place name is "Place of Many Tortillas."

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The texturing on this tortilla is random compared to earlier representations in the Codex Mendoza, where the marks are parallel, vertical, black lines much like the ones that appear on the dried maize cobs in the glyphs for cintli. On the corn cobs, the lines look like faces, but they may be a sign for "maize."

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

texcala

Gloss Normalization:

Tlaxcalla

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Telleriano-Remensis, Codex (TR)

Date of Manuscript:

ca. 1550–1563

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

place name

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Corn, Maize

Food, Eating, Cooking

Landscape Features

Names (places)

Plants, Flora

Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood and Stephanie Wood

Colors:

black

green (light)

white/neutral

Shapes and Perspectives:

bell-shaped (upright)

frontal view

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tlaxcal(li), tortilla, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlaxcalli-0
tlan (locative suffix), by or among, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlan

Image Source:

Telleriano-Remensis Codex, folio 28 recto, MS Mexicain 385, Gallica digital collection, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8458267s/f81.item.zoom

Image Source, Rights:

The non-commercial reuse of images from the Bibliothèque nationale de France is free as long as the user is in compliance with the legislation in force and provides the citation: “Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France” or “Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.”

Historical Contextualizing Image: