Piedra de Ahuítzotl

In this plaque was carved the name-glyph of the eighth tlatoani, or supreme Mexica ruler, called Ahuítzotl, who governed from 1486 to 1502. The image is a mythological animal conceived as an otter or aquatic dog with long and sharp claws, surrounded by the glyph of water and characterized for having a human hand in the end of its tail. In Náhuatl this animal was called ahuitzotl (ahuizote) that means literally “the thorny one from water” and that in ancient vocabularies is translated as “kind of aquatic animal like a dog”. The ancient Mexicans thought that Tlaloc, god of rain who lived in the depths of water, had sent it. His role was of catching men with the hand had in his tail to drown them and send them as servants of Tlaloc. This stone plaque was originally bult-in at the south wall of the pyramid-temple in the hill of the Tepozteco, a very important worship site established by the Mexicas after the complete conquest of Morelos achieved precisely during the reign of Ahuítzotl.Arqlga. Bertina Olmedo Vera