tepetl (Mdz8r)
This element has been carved from the compound sign for the place name, Tepecuacuilco. We removed the cuaculli from the top of the mountain, and tried to coax the image of the element back into the classic shape and color for tepetl. What remains is the two-tone green bell shape, with curling, rocky outcroppings on the left and right slopes, and the horizontal red and yellow lines near the base. The red line wraps around the yellow line at each end, following the curve of the bottom of the bell shape.
Stephanie Wood
The tepetl, which often appears at the end of a place name, here provides the phonetic beginning of a place name (Tepe-). The rocky outcroppings on the left and right slopes provide a phonetic clue ("te") that this glyph is meant to be read "tepetl." Of course, mountains also typically have rocks. Regarding the yellow and red horizontal stripes, please see the article on Interiors.
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
mountains, hills, montañas, cerros, altepetl, stones, piedras, rocks, rocas
tepe(tl), hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepetl
el cerro o la montaña
Codex Mendoza, folio 08 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 25, 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).
