Aztec sun stone: Did you mean...?

Saynday tales are popular legends of the Kiowa nation featuring the trickster figure Saynday who, like other Native American tricksters, sometimes appears as a hero, sometimes as a villain, and other times as a clownish buffoon. Two of the...

An illustration from the Florentine Codex depicting Aztecs storing maize.

Atlalli, ink on parchment, unknown artist, included in the Florentine Codex by Bernardino de Sahagún, Mexico, 1577. A farmer in Mexico cultivates irrigated land. Water has a swirling texture while the land is sparsely decorated with wisps...

Stone skulls from the Templo Mayor in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. They represent the tzompantli or skull racks where the heads of sacrificial victims were placed.

An Aztec spouted jug. Mexico, 1450-1521 CE. (St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri)

The lighting of fires during the Aztec New Fire Ceremony of 1507, a ritual held every 52 years to ensure the continuation of the Sun. The priests carry fire bundles and wear turquoise masks in imitation of the fire god Xiuhtecuhtli, as do...

Mictlantecuhtli (pron. Mict-lan-te-cuht-li) or 'Lord of the Land of the Dead' was the Aztec god of death. He ruled the underworld (Mictlán) with his wife Mictecacíhuatl. Mictlantecuhtli was worshipped and feared across Mesoamerica. The god...

The sweat lodge is a temporary or permanent structure integral to Native American culture and frequently used in spiritual ceremonies. The lodge is often a low, dome-shaped, structure heated by hot rocks which produce steam as water is poured...

Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, 'Dawn Lord,' was a Mesoamerican god who represented a menacing aspect of Venus, the morning star, and was one of the four gods which held up the sky. The people of the ancient Americas believed his rays could damage...

Apophis (also known as Apep) is the Great Serpent, enemy of the sun god Ra, in ancient Egyptian religion. The sun was Ra's great barge which sailed through the sky from dawn to dusk and then descended into the underworld. As it sailed through...