Xiuhcoatl- Aztec ArtifactArtifact · Weapon"Turquoise Serpent"

Born in Flame

The Xiuhcoatl, from xiuhitl ("turquoise") and coatl ("serpent"), was a weapon of living flame. The Codex Borbonicus depicts it as a fire serpent with a segmented body like lightning, a flame-tipped tail, and a distinctive upturned snout. It was the weapon the sun god carried at his birth on Coatepec, the Serpent Mountain.

When Coyolxauhqui and the four hundred Huitznahua attacked their mother Coatlicue, Huitzilopochtli burst from her womb fully armed, the fire serpent already blazing in his hand. With it he struck off Coyolxauhqui's head and dismembered her body, sending her remains tumbling down the mountainside. The Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlan was built to recreate Coatepec itself. The great Coyolxauhqui Stone at its base shows her shattered body exactly where it would have fallen.

The Sun's Weapon

Each dawn, the Xiuhcoatl blazed again. Coyolxauhqui was now the moon, the Huitznahua the stars, and every sunrise was the Coatepec battle fought once more. Human sacrifice sustained the struggle: hearts fed the sun's strength, and without them the Aztecs believed the Fifth Sun would falter.

Two fire serpents frame the outer ring of the great Sun Stone, their bodies encircling the entire cosmological disk. Rulers were depicted wielding the Xiuhcoatl in relief sculptures and codices, the sun god's weapon in a mortal hand.