30 May 2025 / 10 House
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Find out moreWhat did the Aztecs think of Venus?
The ancient Mesoamerican symbol for Venus
ORIGINAL QUESTION received from - and thanks to - Valentina: Being that the greeks and the romans believed venus to be related to love, beauty, fertility etc what did the aztecs think of it? we know they knew of venus, and that they seemed to have lots of symbolism attributed in the way they viewed things, did they have anything symbolized to venus? (Answer compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
Quite the contrary to the idea of Venus in the Old World! ‘In Mesoamerica the planet Venus embodied danger, and always took anthropomorphic form as a male god. The periodic movements of Venus offered warnings of drought, danger, and warfare. Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli [’Lord of the House of Dawn’ - follow the link below to learn more], Central Mexican god of the morning star, is the principal Venus god, but other gods may hurl darts and preside over these baleful periods’ (Miller & Taube 1993).
The Nahuatl (Aztec) name for Venus was Citlalpol or Great Star. Another name was Totonametl (‘Burning Arrow’). While all the planets represented gods for the Mexica, ‘none was as important as Venus, the planet most carefully observed and studied by Aztec astronomers. Venus was the celestial equivalent to a warrior, a valiant champion whose challenges to the Sun were constant... Venus had two very important aspects, one as the Morning Star (Quetzalcoatl), and the other as the Evening Star (Xolotl)’ (Aguilar-Moreno 2006).
Sources/references:-
• Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel (2006) Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, Facts on File, New York
• Miller, Mary & Taube, Karl (1993) The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London
• González Torres, Yólotl (1979) El culto a los astros entre los mexicas, SEP/DIANA, Mexico
Picture sources:-
• Main: illustration (the symbol for Venus in Teotihuacan and Maya glyphic writing) scanned from Burning Water by Laurette Séjourné, Thames and Hudson, 1978
• Venus as Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli - illustration scanned from El culto a los astros... (see above).
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The ancient Mesoamerican symbol for Venus
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