Of Eye Rings and Torches: The Fire Priests of Chichen Itza and Their Legacy in Aztec Tenochtitlan

Summary

A number of enigmatic human figures in the imagery of late 9th-early 10th century A.D. Chichen Itza can be identified as fire priests, men whose task was to drill, tend, and/or oversee ritual fires reenacting the primordial birth of the sun from a flaming hearth at ancient Teotihuacan. Detailed analysis of the costumes, ceremonial responsibilities, and internal rankings of Chichen’s Itza’s fire priests reveals strong similarities to those of later Aztec fire priests as documented in painted manuscripts, stone carvings, and early colonial writings. These men, like the fire priests of Chichen Itza, dressed as the god known to the Aztecs as Tlaloc, who was the divine patron of the branch of the Aztec priesthood responsible for fire rituals. Although interesting iconographic parallels also appear at late 9th- early 10th c. Tula, whose legacy in Tenochtitlan is well documented, the Aztec priests’ physical and structural similarities to Chichen Itza are more numerous and more compelling. This suggests that the Aztecs, by some means still undetermined, were directly or indirectly drawing upon information and/or memories passed down to central Mexico from Chichen Itza.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21045