Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!

Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.

tezontlalli.

Headword: 
tezontlalli.
Principal English Translation: 

land that is covered with volcanic rock (taken into Spanish as "tezontle") (see Sahagún); a certain type of soil that could be mixed with lime powder instead of sand (see Molina)

Orthographic Variants: 
teçontlalli
IPAspelling: 
tesontɬɑːlli
Alonso de Molina: 

tezontlalli. cierta tierra para mezclar con cal en lugar de arena.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 93r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in English: 

“...teçontlalli (Sahagún, 1963, p. 254, 255), tezontle, a volcanic rock that occurs in the Texcoco-Tepetlaoztoc area.” (p. 54)
Barbara J. Williams, "Pictorial Representation of Soils in the Valley of Mexico: Evidence from the Codex Vergara," Geoscience and Man 21 (1980), 51–62.

teçontlalli = worn out gravelly soil
Barbara J. Williams, "Mexico: Aztec Soil Classification and Land Tenure," Actes de XLIIe Congrès International des Américanistes, 9 (Paris: Société des Américanistes, 1980), pp. 165–175. See p. 168.