tlacahuacalli (TR25v)

tlacahuacalli (TR25v)

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This element for a carrying frame that could hold a person, a (tlacahuacalli), appears to combine the term for carrying frame (huacalli) with the term for person (tlacatl). In this case, the person is a nude, horizontal male in semi-profile, and his visible eye is closed. The carrying frame seems to be on fire. This element has been carved from the compound glyph for the place name, Tlacahuacaltepec.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The flames would suggest that this is a funerary carrying frame for a corpse. The fact that the man's eye is closed suggests that he is dead. The Florentine Codex shows a ceremony involving the burning of a funerary bundle (a corpse shrouded in white cotton cloth that is tied on with cords or ropes). An article on "Aztec Burials" in Mexicolore shares further: "The higher up in society, the more likely you were to be cremated, alongside the tools of your trade and other offerings. Once burnt, your ashes would be collected in a pottery vase [as shown in the photograph already shared], which also held the green stone chalchihuitl jewel that would be your soul’s heart on the coming journey. The vase would be buried in a deep hole at your home, covered with food-and-drink offerings."

A comparison with this glyph might be made with the tlecuilli from the Códice Durán, which Marc Thouvenot publishes in one of his vignettes: https://vignettes.sup-infor.com/imagen/DU_02_280r_a.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Date of Manuscript: 

1577

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Syntax: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Keywords: 

wooden, madera, funerary, funerario, flames, flamas, fire, fuego, la muerte, death, muertos, deceased peop;le

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

tlaca(tl), person, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlacatl
huacal(li), carrying frame, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/huacalli
tlacahuacal(li), a carrying frame for carrying a person lying down?, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlacahuacalli

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 10: The People", fol. 39v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/10/folio/39v/images/0 Accessed 10 September 2025

Image Source, Rights: 

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.”