Facts about Coatlicue
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During the late Aztec period, Coatlicue appeared in at least 12 surviving codices as the primordial earth goddess from whom all other deities ultimately descended.
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Her temples in Tenochtitlan occupied the lowest tier of the Templo Mayor complex, positioning her worship at the sacred center of Aztec religious life and urban geography.
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Coatlicue's iconography combines features from at least 13 different Aztec deities, making her a syncretic figure representing multiple divine forces within a single goddess.
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Coatlicue's dual nature as both a life-giving fertility goddess and a death-bringing earth deity reflected the Aztec belief that creation and destruction were inseparable forces governing the universe.
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Spanish conquistadors discovered the Coatlicue statue buried in Mexico City's main plaza in 1520, then reburied it due to its perceived spiritual power threatening colonial authority.
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Bernardino de Sahagún documented in 16th-century Spanish colonial records that Coatlicue was also known as Toci, meaning 'our grandmother,' emphasizing her role as the primordial earth mother in Nahua cosmology.
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Devotees of Coatlicue in Aztec society made ritual offerings of copal incense, flowers, and human sacrifices at her temples to ensure fertile harvests and safe childbirth.
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Coatlicue's severed head, according to Aztec codices, produced two streams of blood that transformed into serpents, symbolizing the cyclical nature of life and death in Mesoamerican cosmology.
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Archaeological evidence suggests Coatlicue was venerated as an earth and fertility goddess in Mesoamerica centuries before the Aztec Empire's rise in the 14th century.
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Coatlicue's name translates to 'serpent skirt' in Nahuatl, referencing the skirt of snakes that forms a prominent feature of her iconography in Aztec art and religious texts.
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In Aztec mythology, Coatlicue served as the mother of Huitzilopochtli, the god of war and the sun, whom she conceived miraculously from a ball of feathers.
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The massive stone sculpture of Coatlicue housed in Mexico City's National Museum of Anthropology stands approximately 3.5 meters tall and weighs nearly 8 metric tons.