MEXICO CITY.- This past Wednesday, December 17th, marked the 224th Anniversary of the discovery of the emblematic monument currently on display in the Mexica Hall of the National Anthropology Museum.

After more than 200 years of being buried, the Aztec Sun Stone, the colossal monument that synthesizes the astronomical knowledge that the Mexica society (also known as Aztecs) developed before the Spanish conquest, was fortuitously found on December 17th, 1790 in the southern part of the Plaza Mayor (today known as the Zócalo) of Mexico City.

Archeologist Bertina Olmedo Vera, Investigative Curator at the Museum, in her book titled “Sun Stone”, details how, due to the destruction of the Mexican city Tenochtitlan in 1521, the Spanish conquerors removed the monolith from its sacred site and placed it relief side up in the Zócalo to the west of the Spanish royal palace.

The Sun Stone remained there until the second half of the 16th century when Archbishop Alonso de Montúfar had it flipped over and re-buried claiming that the stone was the work of the devil and that it brought evil influences to the inhabitants of the city. In 1790, less than 50 cm underground and 66.8 meters from the second entrance to the palace, workers happened upon it and dug it out of the mud where they left it in an upright position just next to where it had been unearthed.

A few months later, the Viceroy Revillagigedo requested that the Aztec Sun Stone be put on public display fixed within the western tower of the Metropolitan Cathedral, facing what today is Cinco de Mayo Street, so that the important monument of indigenous antiquity could be admired by all.

The piece remained there for almost 100 years until it was relocated in 1885 to the Gallery of Monoliths at the former National Museum, and then moved once again in 1964 to the National Anthropology Museum within the Bosque de Chapultepec, Mexico City’s principal park.

Regarding its iconography Bretina Olmedo explains that the images carved into the surface express the Cosmo-vision of the Aztecs. The solar disk is comprised by a succession of circular rings that depict the different elements related to the passing of time. It presents rays that radiate from the surface marking the four directions of the movements of the sun, and in the center is the glyph “4 Movimiento” the name of Fifth Sun which was from the era of the Mexica.

The 3.6 meter wide monument, which is believed to have been created during the splendor of the Aztec Empire in 1512 at the request of Moctezuma II, is made of basalt oveline, and weighs over 24.5 tons. It is believed that at one point in time the stone cracked which impeded its being used as a sacrificial platform - such as the Stone of Tízoc, for which it is believed it was originally commissioned.