Xiuhtepec (Mdz23r)
This compound glyph for the place name Xiuhtepec features a turquoise stone (xihuitl) atop a green mountain or hill (tepetl). The stone has four small turquoise circles on its perimeter; if connected the lines would for an X. Inside the stone is a concentric circle, and inside that are some divisions; two small upright leaf shapes are bright red. The hill is a two-tone green with rocky outcroppings on the sides (providing the phonetic reinforcement (te- from tetl, stone) for the start of the word tepetl. At the bottom of the hill are the horizontal red and yellow stripes that would be the side of a natural spring. The locative suffix (-c) (as given in the gloss) is not shown visually, but it combines with -tepe- to form -tepec, a visual locative suffix meaning "on the hill" or "on the mountain."
Stephanie Wood
Elsewhere, we discuss the four small circles that appear on the sign for ilhuitl, tezcatl, etc., suggesting a shimmer or vibrance.
Stephanie Wood
xiuhtepec. puo
Xiuhtepec, pueblo
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
hills, mountains
-tepec, on the hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepec
Codex Mendoza, folio 23 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 56 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).