Aztec sun stone
Sign in to saveAlso known as Sun Stone, Aztec Calendar Stone
16th century Mexica sculpture
Key facts
- Material
- Basalt
- Created
- Sometime between 1502 and 1520
- Discovered
- 17 December 1790 at El Zócalo , Mexico City
- Present location
- National Anthropology Museum , Mexico City
- Period
- Post-Classical
- Culture
- Mexica
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- sculpture
- Country
- Mexico
- Located in
- Mexico City
- Material used
- basalt
- Creator
- Mexica
- Collection
- National Museum of Anthropology
- Diameter
- 358
- Image
- Piedra del Sol.tif
Show 7 more facts
- Commons category
- Aztec sun stone
- discoverer or inventor
- Juan Vicente de Güemes, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo
- inception
- 1510-00-00
- native label
- Piedra del Sol
- culture
- Mexica
- thickness
- 98
- copyright status
- public domain
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
~30 min read
Encyclopedic overview
19°25′34″N 99°11′15″W / 19.42611°N 99.18750°W / 19.42611; -99.18750
The Aztec sun stone (Spanish: Piedra del Sol) is a late post-classic Mexica sculpture housed in the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City, and is perhaps the most famous work of Mexica sculpture. It measures 3.6 metres (12 ft) in diameter and 98 centimetres (39 in) thick, and weighs 24,590 kg (54,210 lb). Shortly after the Spanish conquest, the monolithic sculpture was buried in the Zócalo, the main square of Mexico City. It was rediscovered on 17 December 1790 during repairs on the Mexico City Cathedral. Following its rediscovery, the sun stone was mounted on an exterior wall of the cathedral, where it remained until 1885. Early scholars initially thought that the stone was carved in the 1470s, though modern research suggests that it was carved some time between 1502 and 1521.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Aztec sun stone” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.