Acatepec (Mdz13r)

Acatepec (Mdz13r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph for the place name Acatepec emphasizes acatl, which appears both as a reed-arrow (decorated with an eagle feather and a down feather ball) at the center of the top of the hill or mountain (tepetl) and as the blue-green or turquoise plant on both sides of that. The locative suffix -c is not shown visually.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

With both the reed-arrow or dart and the plants around it, there is no doubt that phonetic element from (acatl) is intended and not mitl (arrow).

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

acatepec puo

Gloss Normalization: 

Acatepec, pueblo

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
place name
Syntax: 
locative (visual not silent)
noun(s)
Writing Features: 
compound fully logographic
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Feathers
Landscape Features
Names (places)
Plants, Flora
Weapons, Shields, Armor
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Colors: 
green (dark)
green (light)
red
yellow or golden
Shapes and Perspectives: 
bell-shaped (upright)
spiky
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
downward
Keywords: 

reeds, canes, rushes, darts, arrows, mountains, hills, plants, feathers, acatl, tepetl, tules, carrizos

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

aca(tl), reed and reed-arrow or dart, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/acatl
tepe(tl), hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepetl
-tepec, on the hill or mountain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepec 
mi(tl), dart, arrow, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/mitl

Karttunen’s Interpretation: 

"On the Hill of Reeds" (in apparent agreement with Berdan & Anawalt) [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations: 

"On the Hill of Reeds" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 168)

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

"En el Cerro de las Cañas"

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 13 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 36 of 188.

Image Source, Rights: 

The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).

See Also: 

acatl (Mdz42r)

acatl (Mdz2v)

tepetl (Mdz32r)