left|200px|thumb|The mask of Xiuhtecuhtli, from the British Museum, of Aztec or Mixtec provenance. Xiuhtecuhtli's face is painted with black and red pigment. Xiuhtecuhtli was usually depicted adorned with turquoise mosaic, wearing the turquoise xiuhuitzolli crown of rulership on his head and a turquoise butterfly pectoral on his chest,Miller & Taube 1993, 2003, p.189. Barrera Rodríguez & López Arenas 2008, p.19. and he often wears a descending turquoise xiuhtototl bird (Cotinga amabilis) on his forehead and the Xiuhcoatl fire serpent on his back.Miller & Taube 1993, 2003, p.189. He owns fire serpent earplugs. On his head he has a paper crown painted with different colors and motifs. On top of the crown there are sprays of green feathers, like flames from a fire. He has feather tufts to each side, like pendants, toward his ears. On his back he has plumage resembling a dragon's head, made of yellow feathers with marine conch shells. He has copper bells tied to the insteps of his feet. In his left hand he holds a shield with five greenstones, called chalchihuites, placed in the form of a cross on a thin gold plate that covered almost all the shield. In his right hand he has a kind of scepter that was a round gold plate with a hole in the middle, and topped by two globes, one larger than the other, the smaller one had a point. Xiuhtecuhtli is closely associated with youthful warriors and with rulership, and was considered a solar god.Miller & Taube 1993, 2003, p.189. Matos Moctezuma & Solis Olguín 2002, pp.419-20. His principal symbols are the tecpatl (flint) and the mamalhuatzin, the two sticks that were rubbed together to light ceremonial fires.Fernández 1992, 1996, pp.104-6. A staff with a deer's head was also an attribute of Xiuhtecuhtli, although not exclusively so as it could also be associated with Xochiquetzal and other deities.Matos Moctezuma & Solis Olguín 2002, p.468.
