Barbara_E._Mundy]_The_Death_of_Aztec_Tenochtitlan

The TLaTOani in TenochTiTlan • 67

it because of the reverence they had, saying that whoever
unwrapped it would die” (italics mine). 59 Mateo’s testimony
revealed that inert objects, like the bundle, had the poten-
tial for powerful agency, like bringing death to the impi-
ous. Given the agency of these bundle-idols, as well as the
evidence that the ritual actions of costumed teixiptla also
had measurable effect in the world, it is not improbable
that other monuments, ones sometimes treated as merely
commemorative, possessed a similar ability to effect change
in the spaces in which they were embedded, as we will see
in the work commissioned by Ahuitzotl at the time of the
completion of the aqueduct.

The acuecuexaTL sTone

In the same year that he completed the freshwater aque-
duct, 1499, the emperor Ahuitzotl had a commemorative
stone carved, and this work exists today in a fragmen-
tary state—it is a long, rectangular monolith, once about
9.2 feet long but today measuring 5.4/5.6 feet long, 2 feet
wide, and 1 foot deep (figures 3.7 and 3.8). 60 While about
a third of the stone is missing, the relative cleanness of the
cut, like taking a slice from a stick of butter, suggests that
its destruction came about not as part of an idolatry cam-
paign, as the surface imagery is untouched, but rather for
pragmatic reasons, probably for colonial architectural use,
when its iconography no longer mattered and the neatly
cut stone could serve as a lintel or a doorstep. A number
of scholars have discussed the Acuecuexatl stone and con-
nected it to the building of the aqueduct, given that it is
dated on the year of the aqueduct’s completion: in a square
cartouche one can see the glyph of 7 Reed, or 1499, clearly
visible in the upper left of side B (see figure 3.8). 61 Despite
its truncated state today, much of the iconography is vis-
ible on four of the six sides. The images on the two largest
faces of the stone (sides A and B) are similar: a seated,
cross-legged figure is engaged in ritual bloodletting from
his ears. He is identified as Ahuitzotl on side B by the
glyph carved right in front of his head, an ahuitzotl with a
stream of water flowing down its back, an animal thought
to have been a nutria or some small dog; on side A, this
same glyph appears behind him, in the upper left corner of
the sculpture. Behind Ahuitzotl on both sides is a serpent.
On side A, the coiled serpent creates a dramatic backdrop
to the penitential figure; on side B, the serpent is neatly
confined to the space behind Ahuitzotl. On both sides,
Ahuitzotl faces an altar, the central icon of the monument,

along with the date glyph, which is set above it. Since Mex-

ica sculpture has a tendency to be bilaterally symmetrical,

we assume that an equivalent figure sat on the other side

of the altar, also engaged in a ritual act.

The iconography shows us Ahuitzotl costumed as the

teixiptla of Chalchiuhtlicue. 62 As William Barnes has

noted, the Mexica ruler wears the pleated paper fan of

the rain/water deities, the amacuexpalli, on the back of

figuRe 3.7. Unknown creator, the Acuecuexatl stone, ca. 1499.

Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico. Archivo Digitalización de

las Colecciones Arqueológicas del Museo Nacional de Antropología.

cOnacULTa-inaH-canOn. Reproduction authorized by the Instituto

Nacional de Antropología e Historia.

figuRe 3.8. Drawing of the Acuecuexatl stone, by Emily Umberger.