Secrets of the Sunstone: Part Three

The iconographic elements that decorate the Sun Stone are distributed in concentric circles. The first ring around the center contains 20 symbols with represent the days in the Aztec month, which formed a cycle of 260 days also called Tonalpohualli.

Teocalli is Nahuatl for temple or sacred house. This stone model represents a staircase plinth with side rafters finished with dices, an element typical in the Mexica architecture. The monument is decorated with strong symbolic images.

The front side has a solar disc with the sign of Nahui Olin (Four Movement) at the center, a symbol associated with the Fifth Sun. At the sides there are two figures; the one on the left side has a bird helmet, and a hummingbird with one leg turned into a snake head.

This splendid ceramic brazier in the shape of a figure dressed as a warrior of the military order of the eagles still retains brightly colored paint. The elements that characterize him as an eagle warrior are the dress he wears – an eagle head helmet with a very open beak from which the face of the person emerges – and the bird claw that protrudes from the lower limb, as well as the shield and the arrows that he holds in one of his hands.

This represents a dead warrior, as indicated by the fleshless face and the ornaments he wears, such as the hand-like earflaps and the necklace made of cut hands and hearts, like the ones that are worn by death deities. The warriors that were sacrificed to the Sun are called cuauhtécatl or “dwellers of the eagle land”, since their vital energy went to heaven to become part of the sun army. 

 In the Nahua worldview, Tláloc personified the water stored inside the mounts that were considered to be big containers full of the vital liquid; his servants, called tlaloques, filled their jars with this water to make it rain.