30 May 2025 / 10 House
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Find out moreWhat was the symbol for gold?
ORIGINAL QUESTION received from - and thanks to - Matt Dorado: What is the symbol for teocuitlatl? Thanks! (Answered by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
Teocuitlatl is the Náhuatl term for gold, and literally means ‘excrement of the gods’ from teotl meaning god, and cuitlatl meaning excrement. According to David Carrasco -
Gold was understood to seep out of the earth. Its first appearance was compared to diaorrhea, and so it was called either the excrement of the sun or the excrement of the gods.
Put simply, gold was the poo of the sun, and silver was the poo of the moon (deities).
Perhaps because gold technology (far older in South America) was relatively new in Central Mexico before the Conquest ‘it wasn’t deemed as precious as the older treasured materials such as greenstone and quetzal feathers’ (Pasztory).*
In terms of symbols, gold was more associated with fire (hence the sun), because heat was needed to melt the metal.
The glyph for gold - a cross balanced by four small rings (Pic 1) - can be seen in the jade pendant with a figure of the sun god Tonatiuh, in the British Museum collections (Pic 2), and on the cheeks of the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui (‘She with bells painted in her cheeks’) (Pic 3).
Info from -
• Daily Life of the Aztecs by Davíd Carrasco with Scott Sessions, Greenwood Press, Connecticut, 1998
• Aztec Art by Esther Pasztory, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1983
* Not everyone agrees with this, though! Dr. Elizabeth Baquedano (also on our Panel of Experts) believes that gold was just as precious to the Mexica as jade. Tricky...
Picture sources:-
• Pic 1: scanned from (L) Aztec Art by Esther Pasztory, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1983 and (R) Burning Water by Laurette Séjourné, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London, 1978
• Pic 2 © The Trustees of the British Museum
• Pic 3: photo by Ana Laura Landa/Mexicolore
Comments (2)
Matt Dorado
23rd Mar 2012
Thanks Ian! We were originally going to use this as a band logo because my last name is Dorado. Turns out we had to change our name but decided to keep the logo. The final logo design incorporating the symbol can be seen here http://www.earthtoashes.com/
Thanks again!
Mexicolore
Love the logo, Matt - very cool design!
Gael
12th Jul 2011
cultural tidbit: Mexican Bank “Ixe” currently uses this glyph as its logo.
http://www.google.com.mx/search?hl=es&rlz=1T4GGLL_esMX400MX400&q=ixe%20banco&safe=on&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1152&bih=608
Mexicolore
Interesting! Thanks for this, Gael. It does look smart, too; they should pay the Aztecs royalties...!
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