teotetl.

teotetl = jet; it is referred to as a "special tribute to god" in the English translation by Anderson and Dibble, which also states "nowhere does a stone appear as black as this..." "perfect in its blackness" (Florentine Codex, Book 11, f. 209r-v). It is worth noting that, in the twenty-first century, there has been a move away from translating teotl as "god," in favor of divine or sacred force. But the "teotl" part in the visual representation of the teotetl in the Florentine Codex shows a horned tlacatecolotl (human-owl), suggesting that the clergy had wrought a transformation of teotl from something divine to something demonic among the students in Tenochtitlan. (summary and comment by SW)
Sahagún, Bernardino de, Antonio Valeriano, Alonso Vegerano, Martín Jacobita, Pedro de San Buenaventura, Diego de Grado, Bonifacio Maximiliano, Mateo Severino, et al. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Florentine Codex), Ms. Mediceo Palatino 218–20, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, MiBACT, 1577. Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter, Alicia Maria Houtrouw, Kevin Terraciano, Jeanette Peterson, Diana Magaloni, and Lisa Sousa, bk. 11, fol. 209r. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/209r?spTexts=&nhTexts= . Accessed 4 December 2025.