Tepotzotlan (Osu34r)

This painted compound Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the place name Tepotzotlan, which could be a place of people with excessive curvature of the back (kyphosis) or perhaps a hilly place. Tepotzotli refers to a person with a hunchback, but tepotzotl (or tepotzohtl, with the glottal stop) refers to lumps and bumps. If this place was not named for people with kyphosis, the man seated at the top of the mountain that is pictured in the glyph provides a phonetic indicator for tepotzotl. The man wears a white cotton garment, but his back is bare, revealing the excessive curvature. His arms are folded over his raised knees. His bare feet show just below the bottom hem of his garment. The hill or mountain (tepetl) does not enter into the place name, but it may be a reference to the local landscape or a generic visual locative. It is interesting that the slit tucked into the base of the hill just has one horizontal stripe--yellow--and not the usual additional red one.