tecpan (ColRG)

We have suggested tepan as the meaning of this logogram because the element with the three circles running along its roof line is characteristic of royal palaces or important buildings associated with local government. However, it could have been known instead as either a tepancalli or (perhaps more rarely) a tepanchan. There is a gloss written inside the doorway (see the gloss and the historical contextualizing image, below) that reads comunidad, which in Spanish would refer to a casa de comunidad. Such a structure was indeed was an important building associated with local government, a government palace. A Nahua who spoke Spanish might have seen the iconogram of the structure as the “casa” part of “casa de comunidad,” in fact. The building is situated just below the compound glyph for Colhuacan. The pair are situated in the center of the map and are bordered on three sides by roads featuring black human footprints. A waterway with two wooden bridges running across it borders part of the right wall of the building, while another waterway flows at an angle above them. Three churches are depicted nearby (see the historical contextualizing image). For more information about the Relación and its map, see Mundy (1996), Steinhilper (2009), and Acuña (1986).