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Aztec sculpture tongue obsidian knife7/25/2023 ![]() At Templo Mayor these would have their hearts cut out before the bodies were rolled down the temple steps, mimicking the defeat of Coyolxauhqui. Trade was the driving force of the Aztec conquests, for precious materials such as jade and obsidian, jaguar skins and cocoa beans, but also to obtain the vast numbers of sacrificial victims to appease the gods. The entrance on the left led to a vestibule which in turn led to the main ceremonial room. The vertical surfaces beneath the benches which lined the walls were covered with a polychrome carved frieze. The portico at the top of the steps was open to the west with a roof supported by square columns. However, making a sacrifice of a princess given to their chief as a bride was not a good move (they apparently hoped she would become a war goddess) and the Aztecs were banished. Many people were already settled here, and the newcomers were regarded with suspicion, but allowed to live an almost slave-like existence working the land for their masters. Here they saw an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake in its beak - the sign that Huitzilopochtli had told the Mexica would indicate that they had reached their new home. Early in the twelfth century they travelled south in search of a new home, guided by their tribal deity Huitzilopochtli, 1 until they reached the great lake. The Mexica, who we know as the Aztecs, were a north Mexican people. The site that became Mexico City developed much along these lines, though at a slower pace than the rest of the country, perhaps because the ground was so fertile there was no real incentive to push development. Larger groups built ceremonial or communal buildings within the village compound, eventually producing vast cities such as Teotihuacan, Xochicalco, Tula and Tenochtitlan. Use the vertical and horizontal scroll bars to see all of the calendar's elements in context.Traditionally the metate was used to grind grain. The Aztec placed horizontal sticks here and the shadows of the sticks would fall on the figures of the calendar thus the stone also served as a sundial. This corresponds to 1479, the year the calendar was finished.Įight equally spaced holes appear on the very edge of the calendar. The white bars represent "paper" and the green strips are rushes or reeds.Ī square is carved at the top of the calendar. The tails of the two serpents are at the top of the stone. The flame-like pattern, inside the squares of the outer ring, represent the segments of the two Fire Serpents. The two Fire Serpents snake their way around the stone. Their bodies are divided into sections containing the symbols for flames, elephant-like trunks, and jaguar-like forelegs. On the lower portion of the stone, two enormous Xiucoatls (Fire Serpents) encircle the stone and face each other. The rays divide the stone into eight parts. The V shaped pictographs represent the rays of the sun. It remains in the museum today and is considered to be a national treasure. When Mexico opened its modern, new National Museum of Anthropology in 1964, the Sun Stone was given the central place of honor among 120,000 works of artistic and cultural relevance. ![]() General Porfirio Diaz (nominally president, in reality a dictator) ordered the stone removed to the national Museum of Archaeology and History in 1885. When Mexico achieved independence from Spain in the early 19th century, it retained the Catholic religion but also developed a growing interest - and pride - in its indigenous history and culture. Soon after its 1790 discovery, the 25-ton stone was again ritually subjugated to the new religion, this time by embedding it in the wall of the cathedral’s western tower. ![]() When the Spaniards came along, they down main temple and, at the opposite end of the plaza, built a large cathedral to worship their own deity. ![]() The Aztec calendar faced south in a vertical position and was painted a vibrant red, blue, yellow and white. Originally the calendar stone was placed atop the main temple in Tenochtitlan ("tay-nohch-TEE-tlahn"), the capital of the Aztec empire. The Spaniards had contemptuously buried it underneath the Zócalo shortly after they toppled the Aztec empire in 1521. What the workers uncovered was a disc-shaped stone that measured 3.63 meters (12 feet) in diameter and was 3 feet thick. Tthe The Aztec calendar stone, Mexican sun stone, or Stone of the Sun (Piedra del Sol), is a large monolithic sculpture that was excavated in the Zócalo, Mexico City's main square, on Decemby workers doing repairs in the square, underneath the Cathedral.
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