The Coronation Stone of Moctezuma II

This stone resides in the Art Institute of Chicago, which purchased it from a dealer in 1972. It commemorates the beginning of the reign of Emperor Moctezuma II, the one who had an unfortunate meeting with Hernando Cortez. (Incidentally the name I grew up reading as Montezuma can now be seen in several different spellings – wikipedia lists seven – none of which is Montezuma.) Everyone assumes that this stone must once have been in the ceremonial core of Tenochtitlan, and hence in downtown Mexico City, but nobody seems to have any clue as to how or when it was found and how or when it made it from there to the US.

We are able to glean a lot from the symbols on this stone, which the Art Institute explains like this:

The quadrangular block is carved with the hieroglyphic signs of five successive cosmic eras, called “suns” in the language of the Aztecs. These eras were mythic cycles of creation and destruction that began in the time of genesis and continued with the birth of humankind and the period of Aztec rule. From “4 Jaguar-sun” in the lower-right corner, the eras proceed counterclockwise through “4 Wind-sun,” “4 Rain-sun,” and “4 Water-sun.” The X carved in the center represents “4 Movement-sun,” the sign of the present era for the Aztecs. The year “11 Reed” in the square cartouche refers to 1503, the year of Motecuhzoma’s coronation, while the day listed above it—“1 Crocodile”—corresponds to July 15, when the ceremony probably occurred. On the underside, the hieroglyphic date “1 Rabbit” denotes the beginning of things in the distant mythological past. The sculpture thus legitimizes Motecuhzoma’s rule as part of the cycle of birth, death, and renewal and presents him as heir to the world in the present era of creation. 

We moderns tend to think of rabbits as silly, weak creatures without any cosmic significance, but many peoples around the world have accorded them much greater importance. "Rabbit" was an element in the names of many Maya kings, for example. So it is not at all strange that for the Aztecs the first year was the Year of the Rabbit.

I suppose I was struck by this stone because the Native American cultures I usually study are known mostly from archaeology and have almost no documentary history. But this is not true for the Aztecs, who have a great deal of history, including a whole series of "annals" created soon after the conquest when the elite oral tradition was still very strong. This allows us to understand the iconography of a stone like this in a way that simply can't be done for peoples without such a tradition, such as the Moche or the Hopewell.