A visual guide to the Aztec pantheon
The South American and Mesoamerican civilizations have fascinated me since childhood, when I watched The mysterious cities of Gold. This French-Japanese animated series from the early 1980s featured a solar galleon, a golden mechanical condor, three children exploring the New world at the beginning of the Spanish conquest, and a mini documentary at the end of each episode. Who could ask for more? (There was even a sequel in 2012!)
But, despite this enchantment, Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc were the only gods I could identify, while I could name dozens of Greek, Egyptian, or Norse gods. Only ten years ago I discovered the Aztec codices and a whole world of deities, each dealing with certain aspects of human life.
Using these codices, I tried to identify them all, like a Pokémon hunter, despite scattered, partial and sometimes contradictory sources. I eventually collected and restored illustrations of over a hundred gods.
Through these illustrations, I hope to commemorate the complexity of the Aztec pantheon, make scholarly research more accessible, and show how this civilization is still alive in our global culture. Hopefully they will also help you see this society with the wonder of your inner child eyes, just like I did all those years ago.
Aztec iconography
The Aztec gods, in iconographic sources, are like paper dolls. Each has a basic form which is “dressed” with important symbolic accessories. Even scholars find it difficult to identify the gods as these symbols can be highlighted for a particular cult, or swapped between deities if they share similar areas of skill. Thus, the gods can have several disguises, also called aspects or nahualand share them freely with others.
The gods illustrated below are imaginary. These invented illustrations show how symbols and attributes from actual Aztec iconography were composed to describe a god’s domain, abilities, and needs.
The Aztec Pantheon
These symbols are found in actual Aztec iconography, such as in the 137 restored illustrations below.
But the Aztec gods are rarely associated with a single domain. On the contrary, seemingly contradictory realms, such as life and death, are often embodied by the same deity.
Until its rise as an academic field in search of accuracy, history was, by definition, written from a single point of view. Regarding our subject, we come up against a major difficulty: the Aztecs destroyed the materials created by their rivals in order to justify the domination of their empire. Additionally, the Spanish conquerors and Christian missionaries brought about even greater annihilation, overthrowing Aztec society and rewriting their works.
Fortunately, some of these missionaries tried to collect as much information as possible, in particular the pioneer of anthropology Bernardino de Sahagún, while others, like Bartolomé de Las Casas, fought for the rights of the natives. Their work is still valuable to historians.
Aztec, contextual elements
culture and religion
Primary sources
Iconographic analysis and identification
Work in progress
We have, so far, in our database about 137 gods. And another batch is in the “work in progress” phase, because we still lack information, iconographic resources or simply the time to render them in vector graphics.
We hope to improve and expand it in the future so, if you are interested in this project, you can contact me for corrections in the written or iconographic resources. Thank you in advance for your help!
Special Mentions
Special thanks to Sylvie Peperstraete, Fiona Pugliese, Ingrid Bernal, Elizabeth Baquedano, Florian Melki, Patrick Lesbre and Ian Mursell for their help and advice during my research.
My favorite websites
Mexicolore, a marvelous and rich general public site on the ancient cultures of Mexico.
MayaIncaAztec, an educational site on Native American societies, where I published my first restorations.
My Corazon Mexica on Etsy and Facebook for their amazing designs and costumes inspired by Aztec mythology.