Tzinacanoztoc (Mdz46r)
This compound glyph for the place name Tzinacanoztoc has two principal elements. One is the biting bat (tzinacantli). The other is a cave (oztotl) in the form of an earth monster's head with open jaws. Both the bat and the monster's head are shown in profile, facing to the viewer's right. The bat, painted a gray-purple, is flying out of the cave. Its head is turquoise blue and its mouth (with forked-tongue and fangs) are red and white. A red and white obsidian blade (tecpatl) appears to stand upright on the nose of the bat. The fangs of the earth monster are also red at the base and white at the points. The lining of its mouth is yellow, its nose is turquoise blue with a yellow line around it, and its open eye is yellow with a turquoise blue eyebrow above it. The shape of the earth monster's head is like a hill or mountain (tepetl) turned on its side, with the same two-tone green coloring and curling, rocky outcroppings.
Stephanie Wood
If we imagine the tepetl, with its red and yellow horizontal lines at its base, turned on its side, and that two-colored slit opening up like a mouth, we can understand better the meaning of those lines at the base of the tepetl. See also the article on red and yellow interiors.
Stephanie Wood
tzinacan,oztoc.puo
Tzinacanoztoc, pueblo
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
bats, murciélagos, cuevas, monstruos
tzinacan(tli), biting bat, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzinacan
ozto(tl), cave, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/oztotl
Codex Mendoza, folio 46 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 102 of 188.
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).
