Sacrifice and the Sun: The Aztec Calendar Stone and Its Origins

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Dancing through Iconographic Corpora: A Symposium in Honor of F. Kent Reilly III" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

While many scholars have suggested that the Aztec sacrificed individuals on the Calendar Stone, this paper will not only explore this aspect but also the object’s affiliation with another form of sacrifice, auto-sacrifice. Using ethnohistoric records, connections between the imagery of the stone and acts of human sacrifice will expand on why this imagery was deemed appropriate for this ritual act. Furthermore, an argument will be made that the iconography of the monument crystalizes ritual acts, actually recording in stone ephemeral sacrificial events and thereby making the transient permanent. When addressing evidence for the auto-sacrificial symbolism of the monument, the paper will identify iconographic precedents for the imagery on the Calendar Stone, specifically imagery from Palenque and Chichen Itza. Through an exploration of the origins of the monument’s imagery, a clear case may be made that not only was auto-sacrifice intrinsic to the Calendar Stone, but also the intimate relationship between rulers and solar-related sacrifice was part of the intended symbolism. In sum, by identifying both related but distinct forms of sacrifice within the imagery, a strong case can be made that royal prerogative intrinsically shaped sacrificial acts of all types.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Dancing through Iconographic Corpora: A Symposium in Honor of F. Kent Reilly III

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32681