Corazón de piedra verde

The human heart was very tied to the destiny of the Mexicas from the beginning of their history. According to their own version, after many years of having left their original homeland called Aztlán, from where they went out in search of a place to settle permanently by order of their patron god Huitzilopochtli arriving to the hill of Chapultepec. In this place they suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of the principal people of the Basin who joined against them. In their historical vision of this fact, the Mexicas blamed Cópil, son of Huitzilopochtli’s sorcerer sister, for which he was killed taking his heart out and throwing it into the lake with and islet. Time later, the Mexicas came to this exact place and saw the sign that their god had predicted to found their city: from Cópil's heart had come out a prickly pear with red fruits on which settled an eagle, symbol of the sun. Here they founded Tenochtitlan and since then the destiny of this people was marked by the need to feed to the Sun with hearts of war captives. This beautiful piece represents a human heart of greenstone carved with the image of a fantastic face, found in a central court with surrounding rooms near the limits of the sacred precinct in Tenochtitlan.Arqlga. Bertina Olmedo Vera