tlacochtli (FCbk6f33v)

tlacochtli (FCbk6f33v)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This iconographic example, featuring a spear, javelin, or lance (tlacochtli) 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 a projectile that is as tall as the man standing next to it, holding it vertically. The shaft is segmented, as though it was perhaps made from a bamboo-like cane (carrizo in Spanish). It has feathers at the top and one or two along the shaft. The point is large, and it is tied on.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

See a range of Nahuatl hieroglyphs below that feature some aspect of a tlacochtli or tlacochin. By most accounts, these projectiles were longer than arrows or darts, but dardo is one translation, so perhaps they varied in length. In some glyphs, one will see only the upper tip of the tlacochtli, with its fletching. These weapons typically appear as two or more together, sometimes bundled and tied, or crossed at angles, or four put together at right angles, creating some kind of structure. In one glyph, they decorate a woman’s skirt. For the title or ethnicity of Tlacochcalcatl, they can appear on the roof of a calli.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Florentine/Florentinus, Codex (FC)
Date of Manuscript: 

1577

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Syntax: 
noun(s)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Feathers
Gender (female)
Gender (male)
Hunting and Fishing
Weapons, Shields, Armor
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Shapes and Perspectives: 
frontal view
segmented
vertical, upright
Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

tlacoch(tli), a spear, javelin, or lance, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlacochtli

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

jabalina o lanzón

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 6: Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy", fol. 33r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/6/folio/33r/images/0. Accessed 5 July 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.”