Xalapan (Mdz26r)

Xalapan (Mdz26r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph for the place name Xalapan ("On the Sandy Water") has two principal elements, sand (xalli) and a horizontal waterway (apantli), which provides the phonetic element for the locative suffix -apan (on or at the waters of). Unlike a typical flow of water, this one is not painted turquoise blue, but is left white with black dots, making the flow a flow of sand. But the white turbinate shells and white water droplets/beads are still there, apparently to ensure the reading of apantli.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

xalapan. puo

Gloss Normalization: 

Xalapan, pueblo

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, or 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
Names (places)
Shells
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Colors: 
black & white drawing (no color)
white/neutral
Shapes and Perspectives: 
circle(s) (small, often concentric)
dotted, granular, textured
horizontal
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
apantli, river (in this case), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/apantli
-apan (locative suffix), on or at the waters of, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/apan-0

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 26 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 62 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: 

xalli (Mdz26r)