tepotzcoicpalli (FCbk8f33v)
This iconographic example features the woven seat of authority with the high back rest (tepotzoicpalli, or tepotzohicpalli, with the glottal stop). It 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 the seat in a cross between a frontal view and a profile view, as the man is facing toward the viewer’s right. This high ruler–seemingly Motecuhzoma, given the name glyph–sits on the seat, surrounded by his “war array,” as the DFC explains. The seat is made of woven reeds, much like the mats called petlatl.
Stephanie Wood
A couple of high-backed icpalli appear below, along with humbler tule seats (named with the root of icpalli) that do not have high backs.
Stephanie Wood
1577
Jeff Haskett-Wood
silla, sillas, asientos, autoridad, muebles, tlatoani, tlahtoani, tlatoque, tlahtoqueh, gobernador, gobernadores, gobernante, gobernantes, guerrero, guerreros, guerra, yaoyotl, Montezuma, Moctezuma
tepotzoicpal(li), a woven seat of authority with a back rest, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tepotzoicpalli
el asiento con respalda
Stephanie Wood
Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 8: Kings and Lords", fol. 33v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/8/folio/33v/images/0 Accessed 17 August 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.”
