Mictlantecuhtli – Aztec God of Death

While navigating through the vast variety of sacred imagery, and never-ending pantheon of Mesoamerican gods, I have stumbled upon one interesting character, which definitely stood out of the crowd. It was Mictlantecuhtli – the Aztec God of Death. It was also quite exciting imagery to tackle. My interpretation of Mictlantecuhtli turned out as a combination of modern and ancient depictions of the god.

Mictlantecuhtli (meaning "Lord of Mictlan"), in Aztec mythology, was a god of the dead and the king of Mictlan (Chicunauhmictlan), the lowest and northernmost section of the underworld. He was one of the principal gods of the Aztecs and was the most prominent of several gods and goddesses of death and the underworld (see also Chalmecatl). The worship of Mictlantecuhtli sometimes involved ritual cannibalism, with human flesh being consumed in and around the temple.

Mictlantecuhtli was usually depicted as a blood-spattered skeleton or a person wearing a toothy skull, or a skull itself.  Although his head was typically a skull, his eye sockets sometimes did contain eyeballs. His headdress was shown decorated with owl feathers and paper banners, and he wore a necklace of human eyeballs, while his earspools were made from human bones. He was not the only Aztec god to be depicted in this fashion, as numerous other deities had skulls for heads or else wore clothing or decorations that incorporated bones and skulls. In the Aztec world, skeletal imagery was a symbol of fertility, health and abundance, alluding to the close symbolic links between death and life. He was often depicted wearing sandals as a symbol of his high rank as Lord of Mictlan. His arms were frequently depicted raised in an aggressive gesture, showing that he was ready to tear apart the dead as they entered his presence. In the Aztec codices Mictlantecuhtli is often depicted with his skeletal jaw open to receive the stars that descend into him during the daytime.

His wife was Mictecacihuatl, and together they were said to dwell in a windowless house in Mictlan. Mictlantecuhtli was associated with spiders, owls,  bats, the eleventh hour, and the northern compass direction, known as Mictlampa, the region of death. He was one of only a few deities held to govern over all three types of souls identified by the Aztecs, who distinguished between the souls of people who died normal deaths (of old age, disease, etc.), heroic deaths (e.g. in battle, sacrifice or during childbirth), or non-heroic deaths. Mictlantecuhtli and his wife were the opposites and compliments of Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, the givers of life.

Mictlanteculhtli was the god of the day sign Itzcuintli (dog), one of the 20 such signs recognised in the Aztec calendar, and was regarded as supplying the souls of those who were born on that day. He was seen as the source of souls for those born on the sixth day of the 13-day week and was the fifth of the nine Night Gods of the Aztecs. He was also the secondary Week God for the tenth week of the twenty-week cycle of the calendar, joining the sun god Tonatiuh to symbolise the dichotomy of light and darkness.

In the Colonial Codex Vaticanus 3738, Mictlantecuhtli is labelled in Spanish as "the lord of the underworld, Tzitzimitl, the same as Lucifer".

As usually, the above design is available on a limited number of high quality customizable products exclusively from my Sacred Symbols gallery at Zazzle.

The above information provided in part Wikipedia and various printed materials on symbols of Mesoamerica. All images are Copyright © of C.7 Design Studio

Quetzalcoatl: Aztec Serpent-God

Here is my rendering of a well-known image of Quetzalcoatl – the Snake-God of Mesoamerica. As I often did with my “Sacred Symbols” collection of images, four versions of the image were created: Original, Gold, Silver and Turquoise. I was always taken by history and mythology surrounding this deity.

A feathered serpent deity has been worshiped by many different ethno-political groups in Mesoamerican history. The existence of such worship can be seen through studies of iconography of different Mesoamerican cultures, in which serpent motifs are frequent. On the basis of the different symbolic systems used in portrayals of the feathered serpent deity in different cultures and periods scholars have interpreted the religious and symbolic meaning of the feathered serpent deity in Mesoamerican cultures. 

Quetzalcoatl is a mysterious ancient god who took the appearance of a serpent-like figure, whose body was covered with the emerald feathers of the sacred quetzal bird.  Quetzalcoatl was Lord and Master of the wind, science and the arts, a supreme creator god who together with two brothers gave life to man and the universe during the current “fifth sun”.  Quetzalcoatl (the Nahuatl name for the god means “feathered serpent”) is perhaps one of the most ancient gods to exist in Mesoamerica.

In the Maya language, he was known as Kukulcan.  But Quetzalcoatl has even more distant origins than the Aztecs or Maya or even the Toltecs.  Quetzalcoatl probably dates back to the earliest of all Mesoamerican civilizations, the Olmec whose beginnings date back to around 1500 BCE.

Among the Aztecs, whose beliefs are the best-documented in the historical sources, Quetzalcoatl was related to gods of the wind, of Venus, of the dawn, of merchants and of arts, crafts and knowledge. He was also the patron god of the Aztec priesthood, of learning and knowledge. Quetzalcoatl was one of several important gods in the Aztec pantheon along with the gods Tlaloc, Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli. To the Aztecs Quetzalcoatl was, as his name indicates, a feathered serpent, a flying reptile (much like a dragon), who was a boundary maker (and transgressor) between earth and sky. He was also a creator deity having contributed essentially to the creation of Mankind. He also had anthropomorphic forms, for example in his aspects as Ehecatl the wind god. Among the Aztecs the name Quetzalcoatl was also a priestly title, as the most two important priests of the Aztec Templo Mayor were called "Quetzalcoatl Tlamacazqui". In the Aztec ritual calendar, different deities were associated with the cycle of year names: Quetzalcoatl was tied to the year Ce Acatl (One Reed), which correlates to the year 1519.

The four different versions of the above design: Original, Gold, Silver and Turquoise -- are available on a limited number of high quality customizable products exclusively from my Sacred Symbols gallery on Zazzle.

The above information provided in part Wikipedia and various printed materials on symbolic systems of Mesoamerica. All images are Copyright © of C.7 Design Studio

Aztec version of Mayan Calendar

This was definitely one of the most exciting designs to work with. The imagery is extremely rich, and the number of fine details is somewhat overwhelming.  Very often, this calendar is being mistaken for a Mayan calendar; however this is not the case. Even though it closely resembles the Mayan calendar and is, in fact, heavily based on one, this particular image depicts the Aztec Calendar. I took the liberty of creating several versions of the design: golden, silver, gilded bronze and jade. However, the actual image is based on The Aztec Sun Stone, also known as the Aztec Calendar Stone, which was… you guessed it – made of stone. Make no mistake – all my renderings of the calendar are just artistic fantasies. To the best of knowledge, the only original Aztec Calendars ever discovered were all made of stone. All other popular imagery usually depicts modern time souvenirs. 


Aztec Calendar is the calendar system that was used by the Aztecs as well as other Pre-Columbian peoples of central Mexico. The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.


Aztec (Aztecatl) is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan", a mythological place for the Nahuatl-speaking culture of the time, and later adopted as the word to define the Mexica people.[nb 1] Often the term "Aztec" refers exclusively to the Mexica people of Tenochtitlan (now the location of Mexico City), situated on an island in Lake Texcoco, who referred to themselves as Mexica Tenochca or Colhua-Mexica. Sometimes the term also includes the inhabitants of Tenochtitlan's two principal allied city-states, the Acolhuas of Texcoco and the Tepanecs of Tlacopan, who together with the Mexica formed the Aztec Triple Alliance which has also become known as the "Aztec Empire".
In other contexts, Aztec may refer to all the various city states and their peoples, who shared large parts of their ethnic history as well as many important cultural traits with the Mexica, Acolhua and Tepanecs, and who like them, also spoke the Nahuatl language. In this meaning it is possible to talk about an Aztec civilization including all the particular cultural patterns common for the Nahuatl speaking peoples of the late postclassic period in Mesoamerica.
The Aztec Calendar is one of the Mesoamerican calendars, sharing the basic structure of calendars from throughout ancient Mesoamerica, heavily based on Mayan calendar system.  The calendar consisted of a 365-day calendar cycle called xiuhpohualli (year count) and a 260-day ritual cycle called tonalpohualli (day count). These two cycles together formed a 52-year "century," sometimes called the "calendar round". The xiuhpohualli is considered to be the agricultural calendar, since it is based on the sun, and the tonalpohualli is considered to be the sacred calendar.


As I mentioned earlier, the Aztec calendar shares many aspects with Mayan calendar - a system of calendars and almanacs used in the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and in some modern Maya communities in highland Guatemala and Oaxaca, Mexico. The essentials of the Maya calendric system are based upon a system which had been in common use throughout the region, dating back to at least the 5th century BCE. It also has lots in common with calendars employed by other earlier Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Zapotec and Olmec, and contemporary or later ones such as the Mixtec . Although the Mesoamerican calendar did not originate with the Maya, their subsequent extensions and refinements of it were the most sophisticated. Along with those of the Maya, the Aztecs calendars are the best-documented and most completely understood.


As usually, all four different versions of my design: gold, silver, gilded bronze and jade -- are available on a limited number of high quality customizable products exclusively from my Sacred Symbols gallery at Zazzle.



The above information provided in part by Wikipedia and various printed materials on sumbols of Mesoamerica. All images are Copyright © of C.7 Design Studio