Tecpatl

In the Aztec culture, Tecpatl was a flint or obsidian knife with a lanceolate figure and double-edged blade, with elongated ends. Both ends could be rounded or pointed, but other designs were made with a blade attached to a handle. It can be represented with the top half red, reminiscent of the color of blood, in representations of human sacrifice and the rest white, indicating the color of the flint blade.

It was the sign of the eighteenth day, the twentieth day of the month of the Aztec calendar and the beginning of one of the twenty trecenas of the tonalpohualli.

The Tecpatl knife was traditionally used for human sacrifice by the Aztecs, but it also was the short-range weapon of the jaguar warriors. Although it may have seen only limited use on the battlefield, its sharp edges would have made it an effective sidearm.

Tecpatl, is one of the most complex iconographic symbols of Aztec mythology. This knife expresses multiple meanings that carry a complex view of the world which are closely associated with the notions of origin and human sacrifice.

The Tecpatl (Flint) was born in the height of heaven shaped as a knife, and was thrown down by his brother, and it was destined to descend from heaven to earth. It falls in (The Place of the Seven Caves) primary array of peoples, fragmenting into 1600 pieces, and from those fragments a thousand and six hundred gods emerge, the first gods here on earth. These gods emerging from the Seven Caves are the Centzonmimixcoa (four snakes clouds). This is confirmed by another version of the myth where the Flint serves as a temporary event marker, appearing as a calendar date, as a carrier of the year Centzonmimixcoa are born: "In year 1 Tecpatl Centzonmimixcoa were born, Iztac Chalchiuhtlicue (She of the Jade Skirt) begat the fourhundreth mixcohua. Then they went into a cave; and upon entering, their mother gave birth to five more Mimixcoa".

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