Tlacateotl (MH704v)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Tlacateotl (perhaps “Divine Lord”) is attested here as a man’s name. The glyph shows a frontal view of a sun with a human-like face and eleven or twelve pointed rays coming off a large circle. Below the sun is stone with curling ends and diagonal stripes in the middle. The stone (tetl) is a phonetic indicator for the start of teotl. Please note that we have rotated this compound glyph to ease the eventual visual recognition of it (for the purpose of comparing it with other similar glyphs). The contextualizing image shows the original angle at which this compound appeared.
Stephanie Wood
This is a seemingly high status name, but it is held by a tribute payer who otherwise does not appear to be of high status. Perhaps this name is not as unusual as it seems. This child may have been named for the famous ruler of Tlatelolco. The visual element of the sun (tonatiuh), which is not part of the name, apparently equates here to teotl (divine force, deity).
Stephanie Wood
barnapē tlacateoth
Bernabé Tlacateotl
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
soles, rayos, caras, círculos, piedras, gobernantes, tlatoani, señores nahuas, nombres de hombres
Tlacateotl, a personal name, e.g., the second lord of Tlatelolco, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlacateotl
tlaca(tl), a lord or a person, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlacatl
teo(tl), a divine force or divinity, deity, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/teotl
posiblemente, Señor Divino
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 704v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=487&st=image.
This manuscript is hosted by the Library of Congress and the World Digital Library; used here with the Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SAq 3.0).
