Tlilhuacan (TK206v)

Tlilhuacan (TK206v)
Compound Hieroglyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This painted compound Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the place name Tlilhuacan (perhaps “Place with Black Ink”). It has four elements, and it is read from back to front. At the back is an amorphous shape of blackness (tlilli). Coming forward we see a terracotta-colored grasping hand, the one Alfonso Lacadena (PARI Journal, 2008) identified as a -hua- syllable. The hand is grasping water (atl), which provides a phonetic vowel “a,” that applies either to -hua- or to -can, the locative suffix, because they both contain that vowel. The water is a gray or brown color, and it has the usual lines of current (movement) and droplets or beads and turbinate shells at the tips of the small splashes. Finally, at the lower end of this compound are two brown, heart-shaped leaves (perhaps izhuatl or huauhtli) with black speckles. They complement the grasping hand underlining the presence of the -hua- syllable.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

In the end, only the black shape (perhaps intending black ink) provides a semantic contribution for the translation of the place name. If it refers to ink, perhaps this community provided an important source for the creation of codices such as this one.

Side Note: The folio numbers are not always clear in the copy published online by the British Museum. Marc Thouvenot gives this page the number K04_B in his TLACHIA digital collection, https://tlachia.iib.unam.mx/tepetlaoztoc/K04_B.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image:

Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription:

tlilhuacan.

Gloss/Text Normalization:

Tlilhuacan

Gloss/Text Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Tepetlaoztoc, Codex (aka Kingsborough) (TK)

Date of Manuscript:

c. 1556

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Tepetlaoztoc, East of Lake Tetzcoco

Semantic Categories:

phonetic dimensions

place name

Syntax:

noun(s)

syllable: hua (from izhuatl, leaves)

syllable: hua or huan (grasping hand possessive)

Writing Features:

compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Anatomy, human body parts

Writing, Literacy

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

back to front

Keywords:

tintas, negras, agua, amaranto, mano, manos, nombres de lugares, topónimos, topónimo, fonetismo

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tlil(li), black, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlilli
-hua, singular possessiv,, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/hua
-can, locative suffix, where, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/can-2

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

posiblemente, Lugar con Tinta Negra

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

The Codex Kingsborough, also known as the Códice de Tepetlaoztoc, and the Memorial de los indios de Tepetlaoztoc, is not on display. It was transferred from the British Library and is now held by the British Museum. It is shared on line at: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Am2006-Drg-13964

Image Source, Rights:

©The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. Please also cite the <em>Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphsem>, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities Projects, 2020-present) and this URL.

Historical Contextualizing Image: