Variations on a royal theme: The name glyphs of Tizoc

Abstract: In this entry, I discuss most of the written variants of the name of the seventh Aztec emperor, Tizoc, which has puzzled specialists for at least a century both in account of its etymology and its glyphic forms. I propose that most instances of this name are examples of the phenomenon of phonetic alteration in spelling, which is different from phonetic alteration in the spoken language, and is a feature of other writing systems, specifically of Sumerian (cfr. Viano 2015). Besides offering readings for most of the variants of this name, I propose that the lone variant te-zo, Tezo(c), found in Codex Telleriano Remensis 38v and 39r, could indicate that the name’s original form was Tezoc, ‘bleeder’.

The name of the seventh tlatoani or ruler of Tenochtitlan, Tizoc, has the rare privilege of being puzzling both to grammarians and epigraphists. Considered in general a weak ruler in account of his poor military record, short reign, and probable murder (Hassig 1988: 198-199), Tizoc’s greatest accomplishment was initiating the final expansion of the great temple of Tenochtitlan, depicted in many pictographic sources and acknowledged as the most relevant event of his reign (cfr. Sahagun 1997: 187). However, besides his unfortunate reign, Tizoc (reverential Tizocicatzin) remains a mystery for the posterity, for reasons that the Aztec didn’t suspect: his own name.

As mentioned, the name Tizoc is an etymological enigma. No real consensus on its origin exists, given the fact that the name as such is nonsensical in Nahuatl (Whittaker 2021: 149); the most accepted, but still doubted, proposal is that of Cecilio Robelo (1909: 356-360) who proposes that the speculative etymology offered by Torquemada and Clavijero, ‘the pierced one’, makes no grammatical sense, and offers ‘the bled one’ in substitution, discarding also the form tezoc, ‘bleeder’. Robelo’s disquisition is interesting, because it is not only etymological, but also epigraphic, and as such it reflects the prejudices of the time on Aztec writing. He suggests that the usual form of this emperor’s name, a leg with little dots, is not phonetic but ‘ideographic’ (mostly a synonym for ‘logographic’ in his terminology), and is a reference to the act of self-bleeding, an interesting problem in itself to which I will return later.

A recent solution to both the written and the etymological dilemma has been advanced by Gordon Whittaker in his recent book on Aztec writing (2021: 149-151). He proposes that the name itself comes from a contraction of the phrase teezzo acic, which would mean “He has arrived well born”, thus the reverential form is rather important to understand the origin of the name. Whittaker’s reading gives the ‘leg’ sign the logographic value ACI(C), and states that the dotted pattern stands for a CVC syllabogram tiz, from tizatl, ‘chalk’. Thus, most of the time the reading would be tiz-ACIC with one important exception, the version of Primeros Memoriales, where the name has an earplug that Whittaker reads as a sign of nobility and thus as a logogram TEEZZO, ‘well born, son of nobles’, or perhaps as tiz-zo-AZIC if the plug element is taken as zo. While the proposed etymology is certainly beautiful and the reading value ACI(C) for the foot glyph is attested in Matrícula de Huexotzinco, usually accompanied by a footstep which would be HUAL, hual, “back” (Thouvenot 2019a), which gives support to Whittaker’s proposal (Figure 1), I would like to offer my own reading of most of the variants of the Tizoc glyph, as well as an alternative explanation of its form.

While Robelo thought that the name was ‘ideographic’ and contained no phoneticism, the fact is that Tizoc is perhaps one of the most fascinating examples of the dilemmas surrounding phoneticism in Aztec writing. What I propose here is that the eccentric spelling of his name is the result of a feature of some writing systems: phonetic alterations, which belongs to the more general phenomenon of unortographic or ‘unexpected’ spellings.    

What is unortographic writing? Simply put, “the concept of unortographic writing serves to explain deviation from expected writings” (Gonçalves 2015: 45). This phenomenon is tied to phoneticism, and in the case of Sumerian it reflects the substitution of logograms with phonograms, as well as the reception of Sumerian writing in peripheral centres, although it is also present in the central areas (Viano 2016: 141). Unortographic or irregular spellings can arise through many mechanisms: assimilation, metathesis, ‘ear-spellings’, and the case that interests us phonetic alterations, which “are not understood as phonetic changes similar to those produced in spoken languages, but as changes in the use of the syllabary” (Viano 2016: 186). As Viano explains, these shifts are not phonetic per se[1]. The extensive Sumerian corpus has allowed researchers to systematically classify and study these alterations[2]. Of course, in the case of a corpus much less studied, and belonging to a very distant space and time, such as the Aztec one, the question becomes more complicated, and the work is incipient.

Returning to Tizoc and its many written forms, we can see that in the majority of the cases, the syllabogram xo, with the shape of a foot, is used with the reading value zo, a simple, unortographic shift of the kind z > x in the use of the syllabary. This shift can also have other explanations: colonial examples show that the Aztec heard the Spanish s as their x, and wrote it accordingly, as in the use of the logogram XAN for santo (cfr. Galarza 1988: 23-49), but this explanation only works properly in the transcription of foreign names, and the spelling of Tizoc has actual pre-Hispanic examples, such as those found in monumental sculpture (see below); another explanation would be progressive phonetic assimilation of the xo to its succeeding zo, although in writing this phenomenon usually creates wrong rather than right readings (Viano 2016: 220-221). In any case, I will start this exposition with the easiest examples. The most well-known glyphic forms of the name Tizoc are characterized by the CVC syllabogram tiz (formed by truncating the logogram TIZA, as Whittaker already noted), followed by zo. Thus, the clearest forms of the name comes from Codex Azcatitlan 20, and Codex Cozcatzin 20r. The forms found in Codex Tovar 111r and Codex Aubin 37v, zo-xo, are the first examples of the phonetic alteration z > x proposed here, and are iconographically unambiguous (Figure 2).

The next form, found in the Florentine Codex, presents a ball of chalk (tizatl), pierced by a wooden stylus, with a hanging third element which appears in Codex Mexicanus 64 as a visual variant of the ‘nose-plug’ syllabogram zo; it could also denote a nacochtli (ear plug) rather than a nose-plug given its vertical arrangement and its visual affinity with the earplugs of Chantico in Codex Telleriano Remensis. Nonetheless, the reading value is the same (Figure 3).

An interesting problem arises with the most well-known form, which we could nickname ‘dotted leg’. We have seen that both Robelo and Whittaker have opposing views, the first stating that the dots are piercing signs, and the other stating that the dots are chalk. In fact, strictly speaking, both can be true. The ‘chalk’ (tizatl) element can be both denoted by a ball of chalk or by a dotted pattern, as numerous examples in Codex Mendoza (cfr. Wood 2020) makes clear. However, less known but visually identic is a variant of zo found in the profession caczoc, ‘sandal maker’ in the Matricula de Huexotzinco, which shows a sandal (cactli) or a corn husk (zoctli) marked with small piercings all over, already classified by Marc Thouvenot (2019b). I have followed Whittaker in reading tiz-xo, but the reading zo-xo is probable too (Figure 4).

Next is the ‘striped foot’ variant, the one found in Pre-Hispanic monumental sculpture, in the Codex Mexicanus 17 & 71, and the Tira de Tepechpan. There is a visual ambiguity in the sculptural forms. The one at the dedication stone of Tenochtitlan seems to have a striped pattern on it according to most artistic renderings; the Tizoc’s stone one is too eroded at its surface to state whether the foot sign was further incised with dots or stripes, but it is probable, and thus I will group it the other, tentatively. Now, what could be the reading value of this striped element? Luckily for us, Primeros Memoriales, that veritable encyclopaedia of Aztec iconography, comes to our aid. In folio 264v, in the description of the array of Amimitl, god of hunters, we learn that the pattern of thin black stripes in his leg is described with the sentence motizahuahuanticac, ‘he is painted with stripes of chalk’ (Sahagún 1997: 107). Hence, the vertical striped pattern here is actually another variant of the logogram TIZA, and its derivative CVC syllabogram tiz. Finally, the variant of the Mexicanus needs a little commentary: it presents a variant of zo which seems to be motivated by bundles of piercing spines such as those portrayed in Codex Mendoza 62r, which seem to get poorer in detail with each iteration (Figure 5).

The two variants found in Codex Duran are perhaps the most problematic (Figure 6). The first variant presents a darkened leg being pierced. Usually, this is the logogram TLIL, ‘dark’, but in this case, this logogram is read it seems, quite exceptionally, as a syllabogram ti. Indeed, this form may be related to the equally rare spelling of the name Tlalticpac, (‘On the Earth’) found in Codex Vergara 20r. Note that the ‘ink’ element (tlilli, logogram TLIL) above the logogram TLAL, tlalli, ‘earth’, an arrangement which is read (T)ICPAC, as Whittaker has shown in his analysis of the glyphs for Oztoticpac in Codex Mendoza 10v (2021: 108), and the pa syllabogram derived from the logogram PAPA, from papatli, ‘hair’. An alternative explanation of this hapax form is a scribal error in the rendering of the striped pattern tiz. The next one is equally perplexing, and is another hapax. It presents a leg with some bells (coyolli) being pierced. The second element could be the logogram COYOL, coyolli, bell, although the most likely explanation is that in this case the sign is iconographic and does not have any reading. If this element were not to be ignored, my best guess here is that some metathesis is present, transforming the first syllable co- into oc (as OL becomes lo in the Spanish name “Alonso”, cfr. Davletshin 2021: 63) but of course this is uncertain for the moment, as no other examples of this reading for the glyph could be found in the corpus. I advance the two explanations for these strange forms, but the reader can decide for the more conventional solutions.

Finally, a comment is needed on what is perhaps the most mysterious variant of them all, not on epigraphic but on actual phonetic grounds. It occurs twice in Codex Telleriano Remensis. This variant simply spells the name Tizoc as Tezoc, ‘bleeder’, by substituting the ball of chalk with a stone, syllabogram te. Of course, since this reading is only to be found in this document, there is a number of plausible explanations. One would be a change of the type e > i, which could be explained by assuming that the scribe simply wrote a ‘by ear’ spelling, or committed a mistake: spellings which confuse i and e are found in alphabetic sources (Tezcatlipoca/Tezcatlepoca, Cuauhtliquetzqui/Cuauhtlequetzqui, Cuitlahuac/Cuetlahuac). The other possibility is that the original form of the name was actually Tezoc, and Tizoc is the result of a vowel shift only affecting the ‘name’ variant of the word, while the noun itself remained unaffected. This would imply that the Telleriano spelling is ultra-correct or archaic, but the main difficulty is that this codex is, of course, later than the Pre-Hispanic examples found in monumental sculpture, which favour tiz-xo, thus, this suggestion must remain hypothetical (Figure 7).

Whatever the truth behind the name of Tizoc is, this short note can give us an idea of the multiple headaches that the glyphic spelling of a name with an obscure, unsolved etymology can create for Nahuatl epigraphists. The mechanism proposed here, that of phonetic alteration, can also be useful to conceptualize changes such as tzi > xi in the name me-tzi, Mexi, Mexi, in Codex Mendoza 2r, for this name is never written in the alphabetic sources as Metzin (‘little maguey’), but as Mexi or Meci, of uncertain etymology (Guerra Hernández 2021). In any case, and whatever explanation is the most satisfying for the reader, I do concur with Whittaker that the study of both Nahuatl grammar and Nahuatl writing is constantly improving thanks to the efforts of generations of scholars, and perhaps in the future we will have better explanations for the traditional conundrums of the language and its writing system, which have busied the minds of researchers for more than a century.

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Gabriel Kruell and Marc Thouvenot for their comments on my ideas. All the faults of this note are mine alone.

References

Davletshin, Alberto. 2021. “Descripción funcional de la escritura jeroglífica náhuatl y una lista de términos técnicos para el análisis de sus deletreos” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 62: 43-91.

Galarza, Joaquín. 1988. Estudios de escritura indígena tradicional azteca-náhuatl. Mexico: Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos

Gonçalves, Carlos. 2015. Mathematical Tablets from Tell Harmal. Cham: Springer.

Guerra Hernández, Lino. 2021. Los fundadores de Tenochtitlan: Sus principales personajes. Mexico: Ce-Acatl.

Hassig, Ross. 1988. Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Robelo, Cecilio. 1909. Nombres de los reyes de México: Estudio etimológico. Mexico: Imprenta y Fototipia de la Secretaría de Fomento.

Viano, Maurizio. 2015. “Unorthographic Writings”. In The Reception of Sumerian Literature in the Western Periphery, 141-228. Venice: Ca’ Foscari.

Sahagún, Fray Bernardino de. 1997. Primeros Memoriales. Trans. Thelma Sullivan. Norman, OK: The University of Oklahoma Press.

Thouvenot, Marc. 2019a. “Hualacic” in CEN, Compendio Enciclopédico Náhuatl, [https://cen.sup-infor.com/]

Thouvenot, Marc. 2019a. “Caczoc” in CEN, Compendio Enciclopédico Náhuatl, [https://cen.sup-infor.com/]

Whittaker, Gordon. 2021. Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs: A Guide to Nahuatl Writing. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Wood, Stephanie, ed. 2020. “Tizatl”, in Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, Wired Humanities Projects, University of Oregon [https://aztecglyphs.uoregon.edu/]

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[1] “For example, when the sign KI is used to write gi4, it is read here as ki rather than gi5 because the purpose of the analysis is to show that a sign with an original voiceless consonant was used to write a logogram with a voiced sound. Therefore the shift g > k is evaluated only in terms of the syllabary, without regard to the actual pronunciation of the sign KI, whether /ki/ or /gi/” (2016: 186).

[2] See an extensive list of these phonetic alterations in Sumerian writing compiled by Viano (2015: 186-196).