temetztepilolli (FCbk10f17r)

temetztepilolli (FCbk10f17r)
Iconography

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This iconographic example, featuring a mason’s tool, the plumb bob (temetztepillolli), is included in this digital collection for the purpose of making comparisons with any possibly 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 heavy round ball with a loop on the top and a rope running from the ball up to the hand of a man. These tools date way back to Roman and medieval times in Europe, so it is surely a tool introduced through Spanish colonizers. Being black, it might be obsidian, but in Europe the plumb bobs were usually made of lead–and later brass and steel.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

Nothing like this yet appears in this digital collection (September 2025). But another plumb bob of a slightly different color and shape can be found in the DFC, Book 10, folio 18 recto.

Added 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: 
Gender (male)
Metals, Minerals, Mining
Occupations
Rope, cord, string
Technology (all types), plus Tools
Wood, wooden things
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors: 
black
gray
green (light)
tan
white/neutral
Shapes and Perspectives: 
tied, bound, or bundled
Other Cultural Influences: 
Spanish/European
Keywords: 

herramienta, herramientas, albañil, albañiles

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

temetztepilol(li), a plumb bob, a mason’s tool, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/temetztepilolli

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

el plomo (?)

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. 17r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/10/folio/17r/images/0 Accessed 5 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.”

Historical Contextualizing Image: