Where the Vessels Stood, and What Their Carvings Recorded

Cuauhxicalli were positioned with deliberate precision, generally atop or immediately beside the twin shrines crowning the Templo Mayor, so the heart removed at the summit could be placed in the vessel within the same continuous ritual sequence rather than carried elsewhere afterward. Eduardo Matos Moctezuma's excavations of the Templo Mayor precinct, beginning in 1978, recovered several cuauhxicalli in or near their original ceremonial positions, allowing modern archaeology to confirm details colonial era chroniclers had described from secondhand or eyewitness account.

Some surviving examples carry extensive carved imagery beyond the eagle or basin form itself, calendrical dates, images of rulers and conquered polities, and cosmological scenes that root a single vessel's ritual function within the wider Aztec claim to divinely sanctioned imperial rule, in the same manner as the carved temalacatl monuments from the same precinct. Together the cuauhxicalli and the temalacatl represent the two principal stone furnishings of Aztec blood sacrifice recovered archaeologically, one receiving the offering and one staging the combat that sometimes produced it. Comparative study of surviving cuauhxicalli against contemporary codex illustrations lets researchers cross check which carved forms depicted in painted sources actually correspond to physical objects that have survived, rather than to artistic convention alone.