tecuhtli (Mdz64r)
This example of iconography is included in this database with the goal of providing a comparison for other hieroglyphs for the high lord or noble called the tecuhtli. Here, we see a high-status Nahua man in profile, looking to the viewer's right. He wears a diadem or crown that we identify as the xiuhhuitzolli. It has a turquoise-blue color with a red tie (perhaps leather) at the back of his head, over his hair. He also wears a white cotton cape (likely a tilmatli) that is tied over one shoulder, and he sits on a woven mat seat (typical of the petlatl), part of the diphrase for authority or governance, in petlatl in icpalli.
Stephanie Wood
The diadem alone is used regularly as the hieroglyph for tecuhtli. The long, narrow piece of wood with an angular point and two hashmarks at the top looks much like the agricultural digging stick called the huictli. These hashmarks resemble the patterns on tlaxcalli (tortillas) and on cintli (ears of corn), but the other examples of huictli in this collection do not have these hashmarks, so this is something we will continue to track.
Stephanie Wood
tecutli
tecuhtli
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest
crowns, coronas, diadems, diademas, nobleza, jerarquía social, teuctli
tecuh(tli), a lord, high noble, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xiuhhuitzolli
xiuhhuitzol(li), diadem/crown, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/xiuhhuitzolli
el señor
Stephanie Wood
Codex Mendoza, folio 64 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 138 of 188.
Original manuscript is held by the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1; used here with the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0)
