Xalapan (CmpRG)

Xalapan (CmpRG)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This is a compound glyph naming a community called Xalapan. It is featured in the 1580 Relación Geográfica de Cempoala (Zempoala, Hidalgo). The glyph appears at an angle on the map above an alphabetic gloss and near a church (see the historical contextualizing image). The place name is made up of the noun xalli (sand) and a canal or waterway (apantli). Alternately, the -apan could be a locative suffix ("on" or "at the water") phonetically indicated by the canal or waterway. The glyph itself depicts some kind of sandy canal or ditch, meaning something like “on the sandy canal.” It consists of three parallel, wavy black lines marking off spaces filled with black dots on fields of blue.

Description, Credit: 

Robert Haskett

Added Analysis: 

Typical of the map, the complex glyph for Xalapan appears near a church. With a few exceptions, the presence of a church serves as a semantic indicator for “inhabited place.” A more famous place, called Xallapan, is associated with Tollan (Tula) in the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca.. For more information about the RG map, see Biblioteca Digital Mexicana, A.C., http://bdmx.mx/documento/mapas-relaciones-geograficas-cempoala-epazoyuca... Mundy, Barbara E., “Mapping Babel: A Sixteenth-Century Indigenous Map from Mexico,” The Appendix, 1:4 (October 2013), Mundy, 1996, and Ballesteros García, 2005, 64-65.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Robert Haskett

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

xalapa

Gloss Normalization: 

Xalapan

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Robert Haskett

Source Manuscript: 
Cempohuallan, RG Map of (CmpRG)
Date of Manuscript: 

1580

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Zempoala, Hidalgo

Semantic Categories: 
place name
Syntax: 
locative (not visual, but represented semantically)
noun(s)
Writing Features: 
compound fully logographic
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Dirt, Sand, Soil
Landscape Features
Names (places)
Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods
Water
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Robert Haskett

Colors: 
black
blue (sky blue)
Shapes and Perspectives: 
diagonal or angled
dotted, granular, textured
bird's eye view
scalloped edges
wavy
Parts (of compounds or simplex + notation): 
2
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
inherent/internal/merged
Other Cultural Influences: 
Spanish/European
Keywords: 

sands, sandy areas, arenales, arenas, Xallapan, Jalapa

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

Xala(pan), a place name, one of the boundaries of the Nonohualca of Tollan (Tula), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xallapan
xalapan, sandy area, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xalpan
xal(li), sand, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xalli
-apan (locative suffix), on or at the waters of, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/apan-0
apan(tli), a canal or water ditch, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/apantli

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

el canal arenoso, la zanja arenosa

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Robert Haskett

Image Source: 

Relación de Cempoala - University of Texas Libraries Collections. 1580-11-01. https://collections.lib.utexas.edu/catalog/utblac:f87917e2-e3c9-4eb2-a83...

Image Source, Rights: 

Materials that are in the public domain (such as most of the maps in the PCL Map Collection) are not copyrighted, and no permission is needed to copy them. You may download them and use them as you wish. The image appears here courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin. If you do publish anything from this database, please cite the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs.

Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: 

Xalapan (Mdz26r)

Xalapan (Mdz16v)

xalli (Mdz26r)

xalli (CQ)

apantli (Mdz16v)