relic

Coyolxauhqui Stone

By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.

Description

Disk at the foot of the Templo Mayor

In 1978 the great Mexica stone of dismembered Coyolxauhqui was found at the base of Tenochtitlan's Templo Mayor — the sacred mountain as Coatepec. The carving is late Postclassic imperial art. The myth it encodes is the one Sahagún records in Book 3: Huitzilopochtli kills and dismembers his sister after birth on the serpent mountain. The stone is not a portable magic item in a hero-quest; it is a monument that put the killing under the feet of people climbing the temple. The object is archaeology in Mexico City, not a weapon in a god's hand.

Primary Sources

“Huitzilopochtli struck Coyolxauhqui, cut off her head, and her body went falling down the mountain, breaking to pieces.”
Florentine Codex, Book 3 (Coatepec)(c. 1577 CE)

“The great stone disk of dismembered Coyolxauhqui lay at the foot of the Templo Mayor, the mountain Coatepec in the city's center.”
Templo Mayor archaeology (Coyolxauhqui Stone), Mexico City(carved late 15th century CE; excavated 1978)

Powers & Abilities

Lunar MemoryRitual WarningCosmic Order