King and Cosmos: An Interpretation of the Aztec Calendar Stone

This book focuses on one iconic artwork, the famous Calendar Stone of Tenochtitlan, but it has a broader purpose in highlighting the close interplay of writing and iconography in the visual culture of Postclassic Mexico. Such close connections may appear obvious on a certain level, but the author has long been struck by the lack of overlap in the study of Nahuatl writing on the one hand and Aztec art and iconography on the other. Art historians who specialize in Aztec visual culture do not often venture into the nuances of Nahuatl language, or study the intricacies of hieroglyphic forms that have for so long been dismissed as “merely pictographic.” And the opposite is true, too: those who study Nahuatl hieroglyphs tend to restrict themselves to the fine points of sign composition and spelling conventions. In reality the art and writing of Central Mexico, as elsewhere in Mesoamerica, are two overlapping categories, separate in many ways but fully integrated into a large visual system. The author firmly believes that to study one requires expertise in the other.