The “Fire-Snakes” of the Aztec Calendar Stone. 
By H. S. Darlington. 
The Calendar Stone, or Stone of the Sun, is probably the one most 
valuable relic that has survived the conquest of the Aztecs in Mexico. It is 
an irregular monolith having a circular sculptured area about twelve feet in 
diameter. The stone which is of porphyry is said to weigh over twenty tons, 
Fig. 1. The Calendar Stone or Stone of the Sun of Mexico. 
(From Vol. II, Peabody Museum Pub’s.) 
and its survival is probably due to its very massiveness which rendered serious 
mutilation a difficult task. The principal damage has been done to the three 
faces that are carved in relief. Two of them are the faces of men whose heads 
are grasped by the jaws of the Xiuhcoatls, “Fire serpents”, that lie along the 
margin of the stone. The third mutilated face is that of the sun god Tonatiuh, 
whose head occupies the center of the sculpturing (Fig. 1). 
Anthropos XXVI. 1931. j