The Aztec sun stone (Spanish: Piedra del Sol) is a late post-classic Mexica sculpture housed in the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City, and is perhaps the most famous work of Mexica sculpture. It measures 3.6 metres (12 ft) in diameter and 98 centimetres (39 in) thick, and weighs 24,590 kg (54,210 lb). Shortly after the Spanish conquest, the monolithic sculpture was buried in the Zócalo, the main square of Mexico City.
Carving, burial, and rediscovery
The monolith was carved by the Mexica at the end of the Mesoamerican Postclassic Period. Although the exact date of its creation is unknown, the name glyph of the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II (Moctezuma Xocoyotzin) in the central disc dates the monument to his reign between 1502 and 1520. There are no clear indications about the authorship or purpose of the monolith, although there are certain references to the construction of a huge block of stone by the Mexicas in their last stage of splendor. According to Diego Durán, the emperor Axayácatl "was also busy in carving the famous and large stone, very carved where the figures of the months and years, days and weeks were sculpted".
Juan de Torquemada described in his Monarquía indiana how Moctezuma ordered a large rock to be brought from Tenanitla, today San Ángel, to Tenochtitlan, but on the way it fell on the bridge of the Xoloco neighborhood. The parent rock from which it was extracted comes from the Xitle volcano, and could have been obtained from San Ángel or Xochimilco. The geologist Ezequiel Ordóñez in 1893 determined such an origin and ruled it as olivine basalt. It was probably dragged by thousands of people from a maximum of 22 kilometers to the center of Mexico-Tenochtitlan. After the conquest, it was transferred to the exterior of the Templo Mayor, to the west of the then Palacio Virreinal and the Acequia Real, where it remained uncovered, with the relief upwards for many years.
The central figure and earlier worlds
In the center of the monolith is often believed to be the face of the solar deity, Tonatiuh, which appears inside the glyph for "movement" (Nahuatl: Ōllin), the name of the current era. Some scholars have argued that the identity of the central face is of the earth monster, Tlaltecuhtli, or of a hybrid deity known as "Yohualtecuhtli" who is referred to as the "Lord of the Night". This debate on the identity of the central figure is based on representations of the deities in other works as well as the role of the sun stone in sacrificial context, which involved the actions of deities and humans to preserve the cycles of time. The four squares that surround the central deity represent the four previous suns or eras, which preceded the present era, "Four Movement" (Nahuatl: Nahui Ōllin).
The Aztecs changed the order of the suns and introduced a fifth sun named "Four Movement" after they seized power over the central highlands. Each era ended with the destruction of the world and humanity, which were then recreated in the next era. The duration of the ages is expressed in years, although they must be observed through the prism of Aztec time. In fact the common thread of figures 676, 364 and 312 is that they are multiples of 52, and 52 years is the duration of one Aztec "century", and that is how they can express a certain amount of Aztec centuries.
Calendrical signs and cosmic imagery
The second concentric zone or ring contains several square sections, with each section containing five points. Directly above these square sections are small arches that are said to be feather ornaments. Directly above these are spurs or peaked arches that appear in groups of four. There are also eight angles that divide the ring into eight parts, which likely represent the sun's rays placed in the direction of the cardinal points. Two fire serpents, Xiuhcoatl, take up almost this entire zone.
The carved fire serpents are characterized by the flames emerging from their bodies, the square shaped segments that make up their bodies, the points that form their tails, and their unusual heads and mouths. At the very bottom of the surface of the stone, are human heads emerging from the mouths of these serpents. Scholars have tried to identify these profiles of human heads as deities, but have not come to a consensus. One possible interpretation of the two serpents is that they represent two rival deities who were involved in the creation story of the fifth and current "sun", Queztalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca.