Tzompanco (Mdz17v)

Tzompanco (Mdz17v)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This simplex glyph for the place name Tzompanco shows a skull rack (tzompantli). It shows an H-shaped wooden structure, painted a terracotta orange. On the horizontal bar is one skull, perforated through the back and coming through the open mouth (with its white teeth). The entire skull is white, and the eye is not open or red (as seen in at least one other tzompantli in this collection). The structure stands on a base that is a thin rectangle painted purple. The locative suffix (-co) is not shown visually.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

tzonpanco. puo

Gloss Normalization: 

Tzompanco, 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: 
locative (not visual)
noun(s)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Anatomy, human body parts
Architecture, Construction, Buildings
Death, decay, decomposition
Mouth/Beak Open
Names (places)
Religion (Indigenous)
Wood, wooden things
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Colors: 
orange/terracotta
purple
white/neutral
Shapes and Perspectives: 
horizontal
rectangular
Keywords: 

skulls, racks, cráneos, estantes

Museum & Rare Book Comparisons: 
Museum/Rare Book Notes: 

This image (a photograph by Rebecca Horn, 13 August 2023) is of a museum display in the archaeological site at Santa Cecilia Acatitlan. It is labelled a tzompantli. These are stone carvings of skulls. Below the skulls are found balls. The pile of stone balls is very large.

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

tzompan(tli), skull rack, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzompantli
-co (locative suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/co

Karttunen’s Interpretation: 

"Skull Rack Place" [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations: 

"On the Hair" or "On the Skull Rack" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. )

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

"El Lugar del Estante con Cráneos"

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 17 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 45 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).

See Also: 

tzompantli (Mdz35r)