Ecatepec (Mdz12r)

Ecatepec (Mdz12r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph for the place name Ecatepec (or perhaps Ehecatepec) has two key elements. One is the profile of the head of the representation of the divine force of the wind and day sign in the calendar (Ehecatl), with its large red beak beak (what some sources describe as a duck bill), turquoise-blue head, and white eye. This figure is shown in profile looking to the viewer's left. The head sits atop a classic hill or mountain (tepetl) with its two-tone green bell shape, its red and yellow horizontal stripes near the base, and its curly rocky outcroppings on each slope. The locative suffix (-c) (as given in the gloss) is not shown visually, but it combines with -tepe- to form -tepec, a visual locative suffix meaning "on the hill" or "on the mountain."

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

Air is ecatl and wind is ehecatl (reduplicated). If the deity is not intended, he may be there to provide a phonetic value for ecatl. A great many glyphs in this collection start with Eca- when one might expect Eheca-. We are preserving the proclivity of the gloss for Eca-, while also pointing to the likelihood of an unintentional oral abbreviation of Eheca- to Eca-.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

Ecatepec. puo

Gloss Normalization: 

Ecatepec (or perhaps Ehecatepec)

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
Keywords: 

mountains, hills, montañas, cerros, deidades, deity, wind, viento, aire

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

Codex Mendoza, folio 12 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 34 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: