The Aztec sun stone is a late post-classic Mexica sculpture housed in the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City. The monolithic sculpture was buried in the Zócalo, the main square of Mexico City, after the Spanish conquest. It measures 358 centimetres in diameter and 98 centimetre thick, and weighs 24,590 kg.
About Aztec sun stone in brief
The Aztec sun stone is a late post-classic Mexica sculpture housed in the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City. The monolithic sculpture was buried in the Zócalo, the main square of Mexico City, after the Spanish conquest. It was rediscovered on 17 December 1790 during repairs on the Mexico City Cathedral. Early scholars initially thought that the stone was carved in the 1470s, though modern research suggests that it was carved some time between 1502 and 1521. The name glyph of the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II in the central disc dates the monument to his reign between 150 2 and 1520 AD. It measures 358 centimetres in diameter and 98 centimetre thick, and weighs 24,590 kg. Shortly after the conquest, it was transferred to the exterior of the Templo Mayor, to the west of the then Palacio Virreinal and the Acequia Real, where it remained uncovered for many years. It is now displayed in the Museum of Anthropology, which was established in 1885 by Antonio de León y Gama, the Spanish conquistador who ruled New Spain from 1551 to 1572. The monument was buried so that the memory of the ancient sacrifice that was made there would be lost, according to Alonso de Montúfar, Archbishop of Mexico from 1552 to1572. It would not be buried again due to its perceived pagan origin, and was publicly showcased in monuments of the past, such as the Uribe Stone, the second Stone of Flowers, by the back of the cathedral, and the Portal of Flowers by the front of the Royal Palace of Flowers.
The stone was found half a yard under the ground surface and 60 meters to the east of the second door of the viceregal palace, and removed from the earth with a real rigging with double pulley. The parent rock from which it was extracted comes from the Xitle volcano, and could have been obtained from San Ángel or Xochimilco. The geologist Ezequiel Ordóñez in 1893 determined such an origin and ruled it as olivine basalt. It was probably dragged by thousands of people from a maximum of 22 kilometers to the center of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, and remained uncovered with the relief upwards for many. years. Towards the end of the 18th century, the viceroy Juan Vicente de Güemes initiated a series of urban reforms in the capital of New Spain. One of them was the construction of new streets and the improvement of parts of the city, through the introduction of drains and sidewalks. In the case of the so-called Plaza Mayor, sewers were built, the floor was leveled and areas were remodeled. According to Diego Durán, the emperor Axayácatl \”was also busy in carving the famous and large stone, very carved where the figures of the months and years, days 21 and weeks were sculpted””.
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This page is based on the article Aztec sun stone published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 20, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
