Xalac (Mdz29r)

Xalac (Mdz29r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph for the place name Xalac has two principal elements. The start of the name comes from sand (xalli) which is shown as a lot of black dots. These dots fill a stream of water (atl) that flows to the viewer's right and has small branches ending in shells (round and turbinate). The dots do conform to the lines that usually show currents in the water. The locative suffix (-c) is not shown visually, at least not independent of the water.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

xalac .puo

Gloss Normalization: 

Xalac, 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: 
Dirt, Sand, Soil
Landscape Features
Names (places)
Water
Colors: 
white/neutral
Parts (of compounds or simplex + notation): 
2
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
inherent/internal/merged
Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

xal(li), sand, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xalli
a(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atl
-c (locative suffix) https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/c-1

Additional Scholars' Interpretations: 

At the Sandy Water (SW)

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 29 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 68 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: 

atl (Mdz32r)