Tzapotlan (Mdz45r)

Tzapotlan (Mdz45r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Tzapotlan (Zapotlan, today) consists of a type of fruit tree (tzapotl) and some imbedded upper, white teeth with red gums. The tree has a leader and two branches on the sides, with two-tone green foliage at the end of each branch and, protruding from the foliage, a ground green ball, presumably the edible fruit of the tree. Red, curling roots are visible at the base of the tree. The teeth add nothing to the meaning of the place; they provide the visual for the phonetic element for the locative suffix (tlan).

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

çapotlan/pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Zapotlan, pueblo

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)

Date of Manuscript:

c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

place name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Anatomy, human body parts

Food, Eating, Cooking

Names (places)

Plants, Flora

Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

circle(s) (small, often concentric)

roots are visible

spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling

tripartite

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

back to front

Keywords:

trees, árboles, frutas, zapotes, teeth, dientes

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tzapo(tl), sapota or zapote tree, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzapotl
-tlan (locative suffix), place, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlan
-ti- (ligature), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ti

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 45 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 100 of 188.

Image Source, Rights:

The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).