tzacualli (Mdz6r)
This element for tzacualli (a type of pyramid) has been carved from the compound sign for the place name, Tzacualpan. The base is a thin, horizontal rectangle, the widest of the group. Above that are four more rectangles, that get less wides as they go up. They are drawn in black ink and left white or natural in color.
Stephanie Wood
The tzacualli is similar in the Codex Mendoza to the tetelli, but differs from the teopan. Presumably, all could be religious architecture, although the teopan has the "teo" element for divinity. (See below, right.)
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
pyramids, temples, pirámides, templo
This detail from a modern-day painting by Mexican artist Antonio Gritón (2020) is what appears to be a pre-contact temple that we might call a tzacualli. It shows contemporary pride in pre-Columbian roots. Photograph by Stephanie Wood, Museo de la Ciudad de México, 6 February 2026.
tzacua(li), temple or pyramid, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzacualli
el pirámide
Stephanie Wood
Codex Mendoza, folio 6 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 22, of 188.
The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).
