cuauhcuetzpalin (FCbk11f65r)

cuauhcuetzpalin (FCbk11f65r)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This iconographic example, featuring a green iguana (cuauhcuetzpalin), is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the text near the image in the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss, per se. This example shows a long, gray, striped iguana at an angle, nearly in a bird’s eye view, but the animal’s head is in profile, facing right. The emphasis on the back reveals the sharp points that run nearly the length of the animal. It also shows the somewhat vague black stripes that circle the body and the more pronounced row of black rings around the tail. The placement of this iguana in a landscape setting (although sort of in the air) comes from European artistic influences

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

This digital collection includes a few glyphs or other iconographic examples of the cuetzpalin, a shortened version of the name of the green iguana. Whether the simple cuetzpalin is a lizard or an iguana, is sometimes unclear. In one example, a woman is rolling lizards on her metlatl, making them flat.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss or Text Image:

Gloss/Text Diplomatic Transcription:

Quauhcuetzpali

Gloss/Text Normalization:

cuauhcuetzpalin

Gloss/Text Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Florentine/Florentinus, Codex (FC)

Date of Manuscript:

1577

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Syntax:

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Animals: Reptiles

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors:

black

gray

Shapes and Perspectives:

facing right

profile view

Keywords:

iguanas, lagartos, lagarto, lizards

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

cuauhcuetzpal(in), a green iguana, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cuauhcuetzpalin

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

la iguana verde

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 11: Earthly Things", fol. 65r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/65r/images/0 Accessed 16 October 2025.

Image Source, Rights:

Images of the digitized Florentine Codex are made available under the following Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International). For print-publication quality photos, please contact the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana ([email protected]). The Library of Congress has also published this manuscript, using the images of the World Digital Library copy. “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.”

Orthography:

"q" for c

dropped "n"

Historical Contextualizing Image: