Texopan (Mdz43r)

An article, "Colorantes Naturales," in México Desconocido, states that the color texotli was made from mixing clay with the the intense turquoise blue that comes from flower called Matlalxochitl. But, the reference to turquoise is like most color names in this collection, where Gordon Whittaker notes, "color terms themselves are almost always represented by the relevant colors, not by logograms or phonetic spellings." (See Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs, 2021, 94–95.) His translation for the place name is thus, "On the Turquoise," as though the town of reference is on the color (perhaps a site with turquoise deposits)? But the oval is not the standard glyph shape for a stone (see, below right), and so the reference to the color is not necessarily a reference to a source of turquoise stone. Perhaps the town was on a body of water that had a turquoise color. Turquoise (xihuitl) can have a phonetic value of xiuh- (with its usual stem change of xihui- to xiuh-), or it can have the value of -xo-, which we also get from the foot. The "xo" element thus serves as an example of what Whittaker calls "graphic syllepsis," whereby an element can have two functions, much as a letter in a crossword. (See: Whittaker, ibid., 13.)

Footprint glyphs have a wide range of translations. In this collection, so far, we can attest to yauh, xo, pano, -pan, paina, temo, nemi, quetza, otli, iyaquic hualiloti, huallauh, tepal, tetepotztoca, totoco, otlatoca, -tihui, and the vowel "o." Other research (Herrera et al, 2005, 64) points to additional terms, including: choloa, tlaloa, totoyoa, eco, aci, quiza, maxalihui, centlacxitl, and xocpalli.