Authenticity and Scholarship

The monolith is authenticated by its excavation in place at the foot of the Templo Mayor, and its identification with Coyolxauhqui and its role in the Huitzilopochtli myth rest on the iconography and the find-location rather than on later reconstruction. Discovered andesite relief, carved bells on the cheeks and the dismembered posture together fix the subject securely. The stone is the centrepiece of the on-site Museo del Templo Mayor, displayed so that it can be viewed from above, the vantage from which it was designed to be seen at the base of the pyramid stairway.

The stone's authenticity and archaeological context are not in dispute; unlike several other objects recorded in this atlas, it was recovered through controlled excavation immediately following its 1978 discovery, directed by Mexican archaeologists under the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, and it remains in that institution's custody and display context at the Museo del Templo Mayor. The genuinely open questions concern interpretation, how literally the myth of Coyolxauhqui's dismemberment maps onto historical sacrificial practice at the temple, rather than any doubt about the object's material authenticity or find circumstances.