tecomatl (FCbk6f211v)
This iconographic example, featuring a cup (tecomatl), is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making potential comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the keywords chosen by the team behind the Digital Florentine Codex. There is no gloss. This example shows a large and elaborate cup. It has two bell-shapes, one with the flair downward, providing a base, and the other, turned with the flair upward. The upper part has a horizontal straight line and a wavy line, plus perhaps a lip around the upper edge. Coming up above the cup’s lip may be foam, perhaps chocolate foam, along with what may be a stirring device.
Stephanie Wood
Our Online Nahuatl Dictionary provides examples of cups that were used for drinking cacao, and cups that were painted. Given that the contextualizing scene here shows a ruler in a sumptuous setting, the possibility that this tecomatl contains chocolate could be very likely. See the iconographic example of a xicalli vessel used for holding cacahuatl from the Codex Mendoza, f. 68 recto (below)--with its painted design–and the “tecomate” cup shown on f. 47 recto, which is said to have been used for drinking cacao.
Stephanie Wood
1577
Jeff Haskett-Wood
cacao, cocoa, chocolate, bebidas, tazas, vasijas
tecoma(tl), a cup, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tecomatl
el vaso, o la taza
Stephanie Wood
Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 6: Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy", fol. 211v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/6/folio/211v/images/0 Accessed 10 July 2025.
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.”
