Aztec sun stone

Mexica Sun Stone
Material	Basalt
Discovered	17 December 1790 at El Zócalo, Mexico City
Present location	National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City

The Mexica sun stone, Stone of the Sun (Spanish: Piedra del Sol) or wrongly named Aztec calendar stone is a large monolithic sculpture that was excavated in the Zócalo, Mexico City's main square, on December 17, 1790.

Measuring about 3.6 metres (12 ft) in diameter, 1.22 metres (4 ft) in thickness and weighing 24 tonnes, the original basalt version is presently on display at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City's Chapultepec Park. It is often informally considered to be one of the national symbols of Mexico.

While it is often called the "Aztec Calendar," it is a symbolic portrayal of the four disasters that led to the demise of the four prior Universes in Aztec cosmology. It also contains a hieroglyphic and pictographic layout of how the Aztecs measured time, and was primarily a religious and cosmological artifact.

As the stone portraits the Mexica's days, it is wrongly addressed as a "Calendar". As there is no way to tell any exact date on it, the reason of the days appearing on it is completly religious, and not as any measure of time. Also, the Mexica's Sun Stone is wrongly named "Aztec", as the culture that sculpted this monolith is the Mexica (decendant from the Aztecs).

The Aztec Calendar page also contains more information on how the Aztecs marked time.

Understanding the Sun Stone

Restored Aztec sun stone

The Aztecs believed that four prior Universes existed and the Sun Stone depicts each one of these iterations. The Aztecs believed that they were living in the fifth and last creation of their world. To this end, the Aztec Sun Stone is dedicated to the sun god Tonatiuh, who was believed to have been the fifth sun god, as a means to prevent further catastrophe and end of the world by performing regular human sacrifices in his honor.

Center

In the center of the sun stone the face is believed to be that either of the sun god Tonatiuh or of the earth god Tlaltecuhtli. The central figure's tongue is shown to be a sacrificial knife, while the circles on either ends depict claws holding human hearts for sacrificial purposes.

The Four Worlds

The four squares around the central deity depict the previous four suns (the four prior Universes) that perished. On the top right square is depicted the jaguar. Moving to the left is the wind, below the wind is fiery rain and in the bottom right square is water.

The Twenty Days

Main article: Tonalpohualli

Continuing outward from the inner circle, the next concentric circle consists of twenty squares, each naming one of the twenty different days of the Aztec month. Clockwise, these days are:

• Snake - Coatl
• Lizard - Cuetzpallin
• House - Calli
• Wind - Ehecatl
• Crocodile - Cipactli
• Flower - Xochitl
• Rain - Quiahuitl
• Flint - Tecpatl
• Movement - Ollin
• Vulture - Cozcacuauhtli
• Eagle - Cuauhtle
• Jaguar - Ocelotl
• Cane - Acatl
• Herb - Malinalli
• Monkey - Ozomatli
• Hairless Dog - Itzquintli
• Water - Atl
• Rabbit - Tochtli
• Deer - Mazatl
• Skull - Miquiztli

Each Aztec year consisted of eighteen months and each month had 20 days. Five more dots called Nemontemi were added inside the circle, which depicted intercalary days for sacrifice, bringing up the total number of days to 365.

Gallery of 20~day signs in the Aztec sun stone

• 
  Death, Snake, Lizard
• 
  Water, Rabbit, Deer
• 
  House, Wind, Alligator
• 
  Flower, Rain, Flint, Earthquake
• 
  Vulture, Eagle, Jaguar
• 
  Reed, Grass, Monkey, Dog

The Snakes

The next concentric circle on the stone contains several square sections, with each section containing five dots which are believed to probably represent weeks of five days. There are also eight angles which divide the stone into eight parts. These are believed to represent the suns rays placed in accordance to cardinal points.

On the lower portion of the stone, there are two snakes that are shown to encircle the stone and face each other. Their bodies are divided into sections which depict the symbols representing flames and jaguar limbs. These sections are believed to represent fifty-two year cycles: the Aztec century consisted of 52 years.

At the top of the calendar, a square has been carved in between the tails of the large snakes. Inside the square, the date 13 Acatl has been carved. This is believed to correspond to 1479, the year in which the calendar was completed.

At the very edge of the calendar, eight equally spaced holes appear. It is believed that the Sun Stone may also have served as a sundial; the Aztecs may have placed horizontal sticks in these holes and the shadows of the sticks would fall on the figures of the calendar, depicting and marking time.

See also

• List of megalithic sites

Sources

León y Gama, Antonio de. Descripción histórica y cronológica de las dos piedras: que con ocasión del empedrado que se está formando en la plaza Pricipal de México, se hallaron en ella el año de 1790. Impr. de F. de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1792. An expanded edition, with descriptions of additional sculptures (like the Stone of Tizoc), edited by Carlos Maria Bustamante, published in 1832. There have been a couple of facsimile editions, published in the 1980s and 1990s.

External links

• Mysteries of the Fifth Sun: The Aztec Calendar
• The Aztec Sun Stone
• The Sun Stone
• The Aztec Sunstone Calendar