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Aztec Deities
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The gods of the Aztec, or Mexica, of central Mexico, known from codices, temple sculpture, and accounts written after the Spanish conquest. Theirs is a cosmos of successive world-ages, each destroyed and remade, sustained by offering and sacrifice, and its deities shift form and name freely between aspects.
Facts
Attestation
Era of AttestationSeveral 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 TodayThe Mexica state cult ended with the conquest of 1521 and no continuous cult of these gods survives. 2 Overview
What Defines This GroupingThe 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 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.
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