tecpatl (FCbk11f210v)

This iconographic example, featuring a black-line drawing of a flint knife (tecpatl), 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 the marquise-shaped knife with a point at the top and one at the bottom. A band of white runs diagonally, curving from nearly top to nearly bottom. This stripe has vertical short lines, or hash marks, decorating it. The top half is a light shade of gray, and has two rows of hash marks. The bottom half of the knife is white but shaded toward the bottom, giving it a three-dimensionality (showing European artistic influence). The knife is also sitting on end in a landscape setting, another European artistic influence. The curving diagonal stripe is very reminiscent of the hieroglyph for stone; this may indeed be a hieroglyph for tecpatl, in fact, although we are playing it safe and calling it an example of iconography.