Xochimilcatzinco (Mdz24v)

Xochimilcatzinco (Mdz24v)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph for the place name Xochimilcatzinco has three prominent features, two multi-colored flowers (xochitl) in yellow, red, green, and turquoise blue. The flowers are sitting on a horizontal, rectangular, segmented agricultural parcel (milli), with alternating purple and orange segments. The land is textured with dots and tipped-over u's or backwards c's. To the left of the land and flowers is the half-body of a man, in profile, meant to call forth the reading of buttocks (tzintli), which provides the phonetic value for the -tzinco of place names that says "At the Little," "At the Lower," or "At the Lesser." The half-body is facing into the land (in the direction of the viewer's right), and it was painted with a terracotta color.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The thrust of this compound glyph is to point to a settlement probably meant to have the name "At the Lesser Xochimilco." The -ca- in the name could be a ligature between Xochimil- and -tzinco. Alternatively, might it refer to the people of Xochimilco, the Xochimilca?

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

xochimilcaçinco. puo

Gloss Normalization: 

Xochimilcatzinco, pueblo

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
Keywords: 

butts, buttocks, rear end, little, lower, -tzinco locative, flowers, fields, nalgas, pequeño, bajo, flores, milpas, parcelas, agricultura

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

xochi(tl), flower(s), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xochitl
mil(li), agricultural field, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/milli
-ca-, affiliation in the plural (singular is -ca), the plural can also have an indication of the glottal stop at the end, -cah, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/catl
tzin(tli), buttocks), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzintli
-tzinco (locative suffix), lower, little, or new [town], https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzinco
-co (locative suffix), at, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/co

Additional Scholars' Interpretations: 

"At the Lesser Xochimilco [In the Fields of Flowers]" [Gordon Whittaker, Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs, 2021, 104]

Whittaker's Transliteration: 

XOCHIMIL.TZINCO

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 24 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 59 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).