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Plate 1 A round carved stone with a face at the centre, ringed by four panels, the twenty day signs and rays

Sun Stone (the Aztec calendar stone)

The great carved stone disc of the Mexica, often called the Aztec calendar. It shows the sun and the four ages of the world before ours, ringed by the twenty day signs and two fire serpents, but it is not a working calendar.

Aztec symbols and gods. Also called aztec calendar, aztec calendar stone, piedra del sol.

Meaning

The Sun Stone, Piedra del Sol in Spanish, is a carved basalt disc of the Mexica, now in the Mexica hall of the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City. Eduardo Matos Moctezuma reads it from the centre out: a face, for most scholars Tonatiuh the Sun, with the four earlier suns or world ages in panels around it, making together the sign Nahui Ollin; a ring of the twenty day signs, read anticlockwise from cipactli; rays of the sun; and two fire serpents that carry the sun across the sky. The art historian Khristaan Villela explains why it cannot be a calendar: the day signs carry no numbers, so the stone cannot tell a date. A century ago Eduard Seler called the “Aztec calendar” simply “an image of the sun, no more and no less”.

Origin and history

Its date is disputed. A 13 Reed glyph at the top could mark 1479, under the ruler Axayácatl, or the birth of the Fifth Sun, Matos writes; Emily Umberger identified the name glyph of Moctezuma II near the centre, which would date it between 1507 and 1519. Hermann Beyer argued in 1921 that it was never finished.

After the conquest the stone lay in the main square until Archbishop Alonso de Montúfar had it buried, between 1551 and 1572. The Dominican friar Diego Durán thought he did so because of the crimes committed around it, and “so that the memory of the ancient sacrifice made there would be lost”. It was found face down on 17 December 1790, set into the west tower of the cathedral, and moved to the Museo Nacional, where Porfirio Díaz opened the Gallery of Monoliths around it in 1887. It has been in the Museo Nacional de Antropología since 1964.

Is the Sun Stone a calendar?

No. Antonio de León y Gama, its first student, thought in 1792 that it worked as a great sundial, and on the cathedral wall it became a tourist sight known as “Montezuma’s Clock”. Villela writes that from then on it was “erroneously” taken for a timekeeping device: the stone carries the twenty day names without the numbers that make a date. Felipe Solís writes that almost all who have studied it see a solar monument, and Villela links its form and imagery to sacrificial altars. Several scholars, INAH notes, think it was a ceremonial platform for sacrifice and offerings to the sun, and David Stuart is “almost sure” it was never meant to stand upright as it does in the museum.

Whose face is at the centre?

There is no agreement. León y Gama, Alfredo Chavero, Seler, Beyer and Alfonso Caso saw the Sun, Tonatiuh, or Xiuhtecuhtli or Huitzilopochtli; Carlos Navarrete and Doris Heyden proposed in 1974 that it is the earth, Tlaltecuhtli. Villela allows Tonatiuh, Tlaltecuhtli or a blend of the two, and Stuart writes that there are “several proposals and no definitive consensus”.

The stone and 2012

Answering claims that the world would end in December 2012, Villela writes that the stone “has nothing to do” with the Maya calendar those claims came from, and that because any date such as 4 Movement recurred every 260 days, it is impossible to say when the Aztecs thought the present age would end. The Maya count has its own page, Maya calendar.

Where you see it today

The original is in the Sala Mexica of the Museo Nacional de Antropología. In the Zócalo, a plaque with a copy of the carving marks the place where it was found and invites passers-by to see the original in the museum.

See also

Coatlicue, Aztec day signs, Maya calendar, Quetzalcoatl (the feathered serpent), Huitzilopochtli, Tlaloc.

Sources

  1. La Piedra del Sol (Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, Arqueología Mexicana), Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, “El decir de las piedras. Discurso de ingreso a la Academia Mexicana de la Lengua”, Arqueología Mexicana no. 134, pp. 22–33, Arqueología Mexicana (Editorial Raíces / INAH), article text
  2. La Piedra del Sol (estudios) (Felipe Solís, Arqueología Mexicana), Felipe Solís, “La Piedra del Sol”, Arqueología Mexicana no. 41, Arqueología Mexicana (Editorial Raíces / INAH), article text
  3. El emperador y el cosmos. Nueva mirada a la Piedra del Sol (David Stuart, Arqueología Mexicana), David Stuart, “El emperador y el cosmos. Nueva mirada a la Piedra del Sol”, Arqueología Mexicana no. 149, pp. 20–25, Arqueología Mexicana (Editorial Raíces / INAH), article text
  4. Los españoles entierran la Piedra del Sol (Leonardo López Luján, Arqueología Mexicana), Leonardo López Luján, “‘El adiós y triste queja del gran Calendario Azteca’. El incesante peregrinar de la Piedra del Sol”, Arqueología Mexicana no. 91, pp. 78–83, Arqueología Mexicana (Editorial Raíces / INAH), article text
  5. The ‘Calendar Stone’ (Khristaan Villela, Mexicolore), Khristaan Villela, Research Professor of Art History, University of New Mexico, for Mexicolore, Mexicolore, essay text
  6. Piedra del Sol: 235 años del resurgimiento del Nahui Ollin (INAH, foto del día), Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, foto del día, December 2025, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, photo note
  7. Reinstalan placas conmemorativas a los descubrimientos de la Coatlicue y las piedras del Sol y de Tízoc (INAH), Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, boletín, 2025, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, bulletin text
  8. La imagen central de la Piedra del Sol (Xavier Noguez, Arqueología Mexicana), Xavier Noguez, “La imagen central de la Piedra del Sol”, Arqueología Mexicana no. 174, pp. 11–13, Arqueología Mexicana (Editorial Raíces / INAH), article text

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Last reviewed October 3, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research

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