Motecuhzoma (FCbk9f20r)

Motecuhzoma (FCbk9f20r)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This simplex glyph for the personal name of the ruler Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making comparisons with related hieroglyphs. The term selected for this example comes from the keywords chosen by the team behind the Digital Florentine Codex. The basic name also appears in the text. This example shows a diadem that stands for “lord” (tecuhtli), which is the middle part of the name. It could be considered a phonetic indicator, except that the semantic thrust of -tecuh- is part of his name. The Xocoyotzin (Younger) part is indicated by the lip plug below the diadem, but it is not phonetic; it is just that this Motecuhzoma was known for that particular lip plug.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

This glyph compares somewhat favorably to the ones from the Codex Mendoza and the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, below, except that those are compound glyphs that include hair (tzontli) as a phonetic indicator for part of the name.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

Motecuçomatzin

Gloss Normalization:

Motecuhzomatzin

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Florentine/Florentinus, Codex (FC)

Date of Manuscript:

1577

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

personal name

Syntax:

noun(s)

Writing Features:

simplex or element as logogram

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Gender (male)

Jewelry, Crowns, or other Adornment

Names (personal and/or theonym)

Politics, Power, Governance

Social Hierarchy, Commoners, Elites

Cultural Content, Credit:

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Shapes and Perspectives:

facing left

profile view

Keywords:

gobernador, gobernadores, gobernante, gobernantes, tlatoani, tlahtoani, tlatoque, tlahtoqueh, Mexica, diadema, bezote

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

Motecuhzoma, the name of two Mexica rulers, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/Motecuhzoma
tecuh(tli), lord, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tecuhtli

Image Source:

Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 9: The Merchants", fol. 20r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/9/folio/20r/images/0 Accessed 29 August 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.”

Historical Contextualizing Image: