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Sacred Correspondences
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14th century

This page groups deities by the earliest year a surviving written or inscribed source places them, sorting gods by how far back their documented worship can actually be traced. Archaeologists call this kind of earliest possible date a terminus post quem, which Wikipedia defines as "the earliest date the event may have happened or the item was in existence." Browsing by first attestation separates deities known from the oldest surviving records from ones who only appear in much later texts.

Facts
Attestation
Era of Attestation
Several figures are attested in central Mexican art long before the Mexica; the Mexica state cult is attested from the growth of Tenochtitlan; and the fullest textual record was compiled under colonial conditions between 1521 and 1590. 2
Veneration Today
The Mexica state cult ended with the conquest of 1521 and no continuous cult of these gods survives. 2
Overview
What Defines This Grouping
The gods of the Mexica and the wider Nahua world of Late Postclassic central Mexico. The pantheon is reconstructed from pre-conquest sculpture, temple offerings and divinatory codices together with a much larger body of text compiled after 1521 by Spanish friars working with Nahua informants. The colonial conditions of that record are part of the evidence, not a footnote to it. 2
Directory
Category
Deities 1
Learn More
The gods of the Aztecs

This group holds the deities of the Aztec (Mexica) civilisation of central Mexico, known from indigenous and Spanish colonial sources compiled around and after the conquest of 1521. Aztec religion set human life within a fragile cosmos of successive world-ages sustained, in the tradition's account, by ritual offering including human sacrifice.

The browser will find the war and sun god Huitzilopochtli, patron of Tenochtitlan; the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl; the smoking-mirror god Tezcatlipoca; the rain-god Tlaloc; and earth and fertility deities such as Coatlicue and Xipe Totec. The entries flag that the principal sources were written under colonial conditions and must be read critically.

14th century
Filter Results26 entries

Centzon Totochtin

14th century

Chalchiuhtlicue

14th century

Chalchiuhtotolin

14th century

Chicomecoatl

14th century

Coatlicue

14th century

Huehuecoyotl

14th century

Huitzilopochtli

14th century

Huixtocihuatl

14th century

Ilamatecuhtli

14th century

Itzpapalotl

14th century

Macuilxochitl

14th century

Mayahuel

14th century

Metztli

14th century

Mictecacihuatl

14th century

Mictlantecuhtli

14th century

Patecatl

14th century

Tecciztecatl

14th century

Tlaltecuhtli

14th century

Tlazolteotl

14th century

Toci

14th century

Tonacatecuhtli

14th century

Tonatiuh

14th century

Xilonen

14th century

Xipe Totec

14th century

Xochipilli

14th century

Xochiquetzal

14th century
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005s.v. Aztec ReligionView the Source
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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