The Sun Stone
About 1502 to 1521
A carved disc of dark basalt more than three and a half metres across faces you at the end of the Mexica hall, the single most famous object in Mexico. At its centre is a face with a knife for a tongue, usually read as the sun god Tonatiuh or the earth deity, gripping human hearts in clawed hands. Around it are four squares recording the four previous worlds, each destroyed by jaguars, wind, fiery rain and flood. The next ring carries the twenty day signs of the ritual calendar, and two great fire serpents frame the whole, meeting face to face at the bottom.
It is often called the Aztec calendar, but it is not a device for telling time. It is a statement of cosmology: the present era, called Four Movement, is written in the central cross shaped sign, and the stone declares that the world exists because the gods sacrificed themselves and must be repaid. Look at the depth and precision of the relief, cut with stone tools into a material harder than most steel. Traces of paint show that it was once coloured red, ochre and blue. Notice the date glyph Thirteen Reed at the top, the year the fifth sun was born, which may also refer to the reign of Moctezuma the Second.
The stone was probably carved in the last two decades before the Spanish conquest and lay in the ceremonial centre of Tenochtitlan. After fifteen twenty one it was buried, then dug up in seventeen ninety during paving work on the main square of Mexico City. It was set into the wall of the cathedral tower for nearly a century, exposed to weather and target practice, before entering the museum. The chip at the lower edge is said to be from a cannonball. Whatever its exact meaning, the Sun Stone remains the emblem of Mexico itself.
Did You Know? After its rediscovery in seventeen ninety the stone spent almost a hundred years mounted on the outside of Mexico City Cathedral, where passers by could touch it.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.