17 December: The Aztec Sun Stone

On this date in 1790, the Aztec Calendar (or Sun Stone) was discovered. 10 things you might not know about the Sun Stone and the Aztec calendar.

1. It isn’t known exactly when the stone was made. However, there is a glyph on it which represents the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II, which suggests it was made during his reign. This narrows it down to between 1502–1520 AD.
2. It’s huge. It measures 358 centimetres (141 in) in diameter and is 98 centimetres (39 in) thick. It weighs 24,590 kg (54,210 lb).
3. It is made from olivine basalt, a greenish mineral, thought to have been extracted from the Xitle volcano. From there it would have been necessary to move it about 22 kilometers which was probably a job for thousands of people.
4. There are traces of paint on it, which suggests it was once brightly painted, but the paint has long since worn off, and the green of the olivine has faded due to exposure to the elements.
5. So what was it for? Nobody knows for sure. Until recently, it has been the widely held belief that the Sun Stone is a huge Calendar, because the symbols on it represent the days, weeks and years of the Aztec calendar. There are other suggestions, though. One is that it was a gladiatorial platform or an altar on which sacrificial victims would be forced to fight and then were killed. Another theory suggests it was propaganda designed to depict military victories and reinforce the authority of the king. Or, since there are symbols on it which relate to cardinal compass points, others have suggested that it may have been a map.
6. As for the calendar, there were two cycles. One was the year count, which was 365 days long. Then there was the day count, which was 260 days long. Every 52 years, these two cycles lined up. To the Aztecs, this was a century. While the Aztecs didn’t make definite predictions about the end of the world, they did believe that the end of a 52 year cycle was when the gods could, if they chose, decide to destroy the world. Hence for the last five days of their century, the Aztecs would perform rituals and make sacrifices to persuade the gods to keep them alive for another 52 years.
7. The year count consisted of 18 months which had 20 days each, and five nameless days, which were considered unlucky. There was a festival at the start of every month, and each day was assigned a symbol, mostly animals such as Crocodiles, serpents, Rabbits, Dogs, Monkeys and jaguars, but some days were named for plants, flowers and there was even a day assigned the symbol of death. Each day was assigned a cardinal direction, too and each year had a symbol so there could be no confusion regarding which day they were referring to.
8. The Sun Stone is divided into five portions, or five eras which are associated with five different Suns. There have so far been four, at the end of which mankind was destroyed and then recreated at the start of the next one.
9. The Sun Stone was buried in the main square in Mexico City soon after the Spanish Conquest. Alonso de Montúfar, Archbishop of Mexico from 1551 to 1572, ordered that the stone be buried in order to obliterate the memory of the old religion and the human sacrifices. Then, in 1790, Viceroy Revillagigedo ordered some renovations in the area, including levelling the floor, and the stone was re-discovered. The Viceroy realised its historical importance and ordered that it be preserved. It is currently on display in the National Museum of Anthropology and History in Mexico City.
10. The sun stone is depicted on the Mexican 20 Peso gold coin.

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