Schools, beware!

Pupils studying the Aztec Sunstone, St. Nicolas School, Cranleigh

Apart from the friendly welcome and atmosphere of keen anticipation that always greets us at St Nicolas, Cranleigh, we were further impressed by the presence of a group of Year 6 boys who returned to the hall (after our presentation), while we were packing away, and asked if they could study our large copy of the Aztec Sunstone. They carried on, undistracted, all through the lunch break... (Written/compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

Jake and Cameron of Class 6P came in first, brandishing a copy of the Sunstone that the school had obtained from 'History in Evidence' (a commercial educational artefacts supplier) - you can see it lying on top of our huehuetl Aztec drum. We gave it a thorough check: not only is it a very poor copy in terms of content, but the accompanying notes have several errors...

The History in Evidence info sheet wrongly lists the signs for the four previous Aztec world eras as being 'jaguar, wind, sun and water' (in fact they're jaguar, wind, RAIN and water).

The sheet goes on to suggest that the Sunstone '... portrays in symbolic form the leading members of the [Aztec] pantheon. Smoking mirror as creator, together with plumed serpent and the rain god Tlaloc'. As an introductory piece for schools this is pretty inadequate - no attempt is made to show where any deities can be found on the Sunstone, and of much more direct interest to pupils would be some explanation, however brief, of the mystery of the central face's identity.