Old age in Mesoamerica was a category with precise symbolic weight. Elders were not simply people of advanced years—they were individuals who had completed enough cycles of time to accumulate a wisdom that brought them close to supernatural entities. In Nahuatl, the term huehuetlahtolli ("the word of the elders") designated a specific genre of speech, a form of speech charged with ritual authority that only elders could exercise. The flowering speech scrolls emerging from the mouths of the nine figures in this mural may be a visual representation of that discourse: not ordinary speech, but ceremonial language—the word that has an effect on the world. The fact that eight of the nine are oriented toward the central one suggests a hierarchy within the group: not all speak with the same authority, and the one presiding over the scene holds the attention of the rest. This image is exceptional in Teotihuacan art, where the representation of elders as a specific and recognizable category is unusual. Their presence in Tetitla suggests that old age—and the ritual authority it carried—were values that the inhabitants of this complex recognized and considered worthy of representation.