Yohualtepec (Mdz40r)

Yohualtepec (Mdz40r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Yohualtepec has two main elements. One is the glyph for night, in this case a semi-circle with three smaller circles (red and white eyes) on the lower edge and one in the center. The background inside the large circle is a dark grey or purple, and it is textured with U shapes. The other principal element is the hill or mountain

(tepetl), a standard, two-tone green bell shape, with curling rocky outcroppings on the slopes and red and white horizontal stripes near the base. 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."

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The U shapes are reminiscent of those that appear on land parcels, such as the tlalli, milli, chinamitl, and ixtlahuatl. Was the night sky seen as a type of land? This compound glyph for Yohualtepec differs somewhat from the other one in the Codex Mendoza (see below, right).

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

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:

Anatomy, human body parts

Celestial Phenomena

Landscape Features

Names (places)

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

green (dark)

green (light)

purple (light)/lavender

red

white/neutral

yellow or golden

Shapes and Perspectives:

bell-shaped (upright)

spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling

U-shapes (any direction)

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

hills, mountains, cerros, montañas, eyes, ojos, stars, estrellas, la noche, nighttime, sky, cielo, topónimos, nombres de lugares

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

-tepec, on the hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepec

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 40 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 90 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).