Information on Aztec stone tools

It appears so! Having said that, it has to be recognised that ‘at the moment, much more is known about the range of stone products than of the techniques for making them’ (Clark 2001: 139). Esther Pasztory, in her classic work Aztec Art (1983) includes a lengthy, beautifully illustrated chapter on Stone Sculpture, but no mention is made of the tools used in their crafting...
The first part of your message is easy to answer and illustrate: the Mexica did indeed use large quantities of basalt in every-day life. In his detailed study of Otumba, a once thriving Aztec craft-making centre, (Professor) Michael E. Smith (on our Panel of Experts) recorded: ‘Basalt, a hard and porous volcanic rock readily available in the Otumba region, was worked into both domestic implements (such as manos and metates for grinding corn), and industrial tools (scrapers for loosening the fibres from maguey leaves and polishers for finishing lapidary products) (2003: 102).

Pic 1: A Maya woman grinding maize on a metate: drawing by Eva Wilson based on a pottery figure found at Lubaantun (left). She carries a child on her back

Book XI of the encyclopaedic Florentine Codex includes a Nahua description of basalt (‘stones from which metates are made’): ‘It is black, dark, hard; it is ground. It is solid, round, wide; asperous, scabrous, unpleasing, blemished. It is [material] which can be fashioned well, worked, pecked, smoothed, abraded, sculptured. I work a metate. I work a mano. I hammer out a metate’ (Anderson & Dibble, 1963: 263).
The reference here to ‘pecking’ the basalt is important. In his comprehensive study of Mesoamerican lithic technology, John E. Clark explains: ‘Brittle stones with predictable fracture properties, such as obsidian and chert (flint), were shaped by controlled chipping to make an impressive variety of razor-sharp cutting implements. Tougher, more fibrous stones, such as jade, were shaped initially by fracture and subsequently by pecking, grinding, and polishing... Softer stones, such as limestone or alabaster, could be cut, carved, and drilled to make assorted items, ranging from large monuments to elaborate stone bowls’ (2001: 136).

Pic 3: Within the House of Maize, Aztec water goddess Chalchiuhtlicue grinds maize on a metate; the food is shown as precious by the presence of ‘precious jewel’ signs surrounding it. Illustration based on a detail in the Codex Borgia pl. 4

‘Axes made of tough stones were another essential Mesoamerican tool. Some were chipped from chert and fine-grained basalt by direct percussion and used without further modification. The most highly prized axes, however, were made of jade. Manufacture of jade axes required a combination of chipped and ground stone techniques, plus final finishing by abrasion and polishing’ (ibid).
In summary, in Mesoamerica ‘the techniques and skills of stone technology reached their fullest flowering’ (Townsend 2000: 186), and the Aztecs acquired their tradition of monumental stone carving first from Atzcapotzalco, and subsequently from the Huaxtecs of the Gulf Coast.

Pic 5: Modern pendant made of Guatemalan jade in the shape of an axe blade