Tequixquiac (Osu35v)

Tequixquiac (Osu35v)
Compound Hieroglyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This painted compound Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the place name Tequixquiac (perhaps "At Salt Lake" or "On the Salty Waters"). The compound starts at the top with two egg-shaped white objects, perhaps pieces of salt peter. Below them are four short streams of water (atl), each one with a droplet or bead at the end, and a line of current (movement) down the middle. The locative suffix (-c) could be represented by the possibly generic tepetl sign, perhaps a visual locative in the form of green bell-shape with horizontal red and yellow stripes tucked into the base. This tepetl might also stand for an altepetl (socio-political unit or ethnic state) given the slit at the bottom where a natural spring (atl) can emerge--as we have seen in few examples in this digital collection.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

Possibly the same tlacuilo wrote as Nestlalpan, substituting the "x" with an "s," just as in this example. The white objects in the Nextlalpan glyph also look something like the saltpeter in this one, strangely enough. Other examples of compound hieroglyphs for Tequixquiac appear in the Codex Mendoza and in the Tierras collection in the Mexican national archives (see below). Salt peter also appears in the Florentine Codex.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image:

Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription:

tequisquiac

Gloss/Text Normalization:

Tequixquiac

Gloss/Text Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Osuna, Codex (Osu)

Date of Manuscript:

1551–1565

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

place name

Grammar & Linguistics:

noun(s)

Writing Features:

compound fully logographic

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Gender (male)

Movement

Names (personal and/or theonym)

Names (places)

Water

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

bell-shaped (upright)

circle(s) (small, often concentric)

frontal view

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

downward

Keywords:

salitre, sal, agua, nombres de hombres, lugares, nombres de lugares

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tequixqui(tl), saltpeter, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tequixquitl
a(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atl
-c (locative suffix), in, on, or at, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/c

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

posiblemente, "Lugar de Agua Salitrosa"

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Library of Congress Online Catalog and the World Digital Library, Osuna Codex, or Painting of the Governor, Mayors, and Rulers of Mexico, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_07324/. The original is located in the Biblioteca Nacional de España.

Image Source, Rights:

"The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright or other restrictions in the World Digital Library Collection. Absent any such restrictions, these materials are free to use and reuse." But please cite the Biblioteca Nacional de España and this Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs if you use any of these images here or refer to the content on this page, providing the URL

Historical Contextualizing Image: