Aztec Pantheonrelic
Coyolxauhqui Stone
- Lunar Memory
- Ritual Warning
- Cosmic Order
The great disk depicting the dismembered moon goddess Coyolxauhqui, a cosmic emblem of defeat beneath the Templo Mayor.
About Coyolxauhqui Stone
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.
Origin
Commemorates Coyolxauhqui's fall at Coatepec when Huitzilopochtli rose as the sun of war.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Florentine Codex, Book 3 (Coatepec)
- Templo Mayor archaeology (Coyolxauhqui Stone), Mexico City
About this entry
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.
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