Coyolxauhqui

Coyolxauhqui (in the standardized Classical Nahuatl spelling Coyolxāuhqui, meaning “She Who Is Adorned with Bells” or “Decked Out with Bells”) is the formidable Mexica deity associated with the moon, nocturnal martial leadership, and the southern stars (Centzon Huitznahua). According to the foundational cosmogonic myth of Coatepec (“Snake Mountain”), recorded in rich detail in Book 3 of the Florentine Codex of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Coyolxauhqui flew into a rage on learning that her mother, Coatlicue, had become mysteriously pregnant from a celestial feather that had come down from the heavens. Regarding the matter as an intolerable dishonor to the cosmic lineage, the goddess armed her four hundred star-brothers and led a war march to decapitate Coatlicue on the summit of the mountain. However, at the climactic moment of the invasion, the solar god Huitzilopochtli was born fully armed from his mother's womb, brandishing the fire serpent Xiuhcóatl; he beheaded Coyolxauhqui and hurled her body down the slope, where it broke into dismembered limbs along the descent. On February 21, 1978, the accidental discovery of her monumental circular monolith of volcanic stone (3.25 meters in diameter) in the historic center of Mexico City set off the famous Templo Mayor Project, confirming that the great pyramid of Tenochtitlan was the architectural and ritual replica of the mythical Coatepec itself.

7 min read · Reviewed on September 30, 2026 · How we research

Bells on the face, eagle feathers in the hair, dismembered body on the monolith, serpents tied at wrists and ankles

Primary sources

• Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (Trilingual Writers of Tlatelolco), Florentine Codex: Book III (The Origin of the Gods, Ch. I: Huitzilopochtli and Coyolxauhqui). translation: Bilingual Nahuatl-English edition by C. E. Dibble and A. J. O. Anderson (Monographs of SAR, Santa Fe / Univ. of Utah, 1978). read
• Fernando Alvarado Tezozómoc, Crónica Mexicáyotl (Account of the pilgrimage, the Coatepec conflict and the Tenochca lineage). translation: Paleographic edition and translation by Adrián León (Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, UNAM, Mexico, 1998, pp. 30-36). read
• Fray Diego Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España (Vol. I, Chapter II: The arrival of the Mexica at Coatepec). translation: Critical edition by Ángel María Garibay K. (Editorial Porrúa, Mexico City, 1967). read
• Tlacuilo sculptors of the reign of Axayácatl, Monumental Monolith of Coyolxauhqui (Circular Andesite Relief, Templo Mayor). translation: Descriptive and iconographic study by Eduardo Matos Moctezuma (INAH, Mexico, 1979). read

Studies

• Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, El Templo Mayor de los aztecas / Las piedras negadas: De la Coatlicue al Templo Mayor. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Cidade do México, 1988. open
• Leonardo López Luján (Archaeology of Tenochtitlan), Las ofrendas del Templo Mayor de Tenochtitlan: Votive deposits and stratigraphic context. INAH / Asociación de Amigos del Templo Mayor, Mexico, 1993. open
• Alfredo López Austin e Leonardo López Luján, Monte Sagrado - Templo Mayor: El cerro y la pirâmide en la cosmovisión mesoamericana. INAH e UNAM, Cidade do México, 2009. open
• Cecelia F. Klein, The Ideology of Autonomy at the Templo Mayor: Coyolxauhqui and the Centzon Huitznahua. The Aztec Templo Mayor, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C., 1987. open