5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.
The Aztec gods were worshipped by the Mexica people from their capital, Tenochtitlan, in central Mexico. They believed the sun would only move if fed with blood, which led to the famous sacrifices atop pyramid-temples. Their world was cut short by the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.
The 18-month ritual calendar brought festivals such as Toxcatl, in which a youth lived for a year as the embodiment of Tezcatlipoca. Every 52 years, the New Fire Ceremony extinguished every flame in the empire, rekindled from a single bonfire to prevent the end of the world.
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At a glance
Tlaloc (Classical Nahuatl: Tlāloc, 'He Who Makes Things Sprout' or 'He Who Lies Upon the Earth') is the ancient and venerable Mesoamerican deity of life-giving rain, thunderous lightning, storms, and agricultural fertility, worshipped with profound awe throughout Central Mexico by the Mexica (Aztecs) and their predecessors. His mythic and artistic roots trace back to the great murals and temple complexes of Classic Teotihuacan in the first millennium CE and the archaic Olmec were-jaguar rain spirits, sharing direct functional parallels with the Maya Chaac, the Zapotec Cocijo, and the Mixtec Dzahui. In the imperial cosmology of Tenochtitlan, Tlaloc occupied the supreme dual rank alongside the imperial patron Huitzilopochtli atop the Huey Teocalli (Great Temple), where his northern shrine was painted in radiant blue and white stucco to evoke crystalline waters, mountain springs, and rain clouds. Unlike the vast majority of mortal souls who traversed the grueling nine subterranean trials of Mictlan, those who perished from drowning, lightning strikes, leprosy, dropsy, or water-related ailments were welcomed into Tlalocan—a lush, paradisiacal fourth heaven of perpetual springtime, blooming flowers, and endless harvests of maize, squash, and sweet cacao. The supreme sanctuary of his cult stood atop the windswept summit of Mount Tlaloc at 4,120 meters above sea level, where the rulers of the Triple Alliance assembled during the spring festivals of Atlcahualo and Huey Tozoztli to offer jade, marine shells, and consecrated children (whose abundant tears were regarded as auspicious omens of torrential rainfall) to ensure the sustenance of the living world.
8 min read · Reviewed on September 30, 2026 · How we research
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Sacred symbols
The goggle eyes (rings), the lightning, the raindrops and the jade
The Tlaloque (mountain assistants and dispensers of the four seasonal rains)HHuixtocihuatl
Genealogy according to Fontes pictográficas e etnográficas: Códice Borgia (prancha 28); Códice Vaticano B; tratados rituais compilados no Códice Magliabechiano e escritos de Frei Diego Durán sobre o Monte Tláloc
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Sources and further reading
Primary sources
Bernardino de Sahagún (chronicler and teacher at the Colegio de Santa Cruz), Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España (Book of the Festivals of the Twenty Seasons). translation: Bilingual critical edition by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble. read
Anonymous Mesoamerican (scribes and painters of the Borgia group), Codex Borgia (Plate 28: The Five Tlaloque and the Four Destructive Rains). translation: Commentary and academic facsimile by Eduard Seler, digitally archived. read
Diego Durán (Dominican friar and observer of Nahua customs), Rites and Rituals of the Ancient Mexicans (The Cult of the Mountains and the Rain). translation: Translation by Fernando Horcasitas and Doris Heyden (University of Oklahoma Press). read
Anonymous Nahua (sixteenth-century cosmogonic tradition), Leyenda de los Soles (Códice Chimalpopoca: The Third Sun ruled by Tlaloc). translation: Critical edition by Primo Feliciano Velázquez (UNAM / Wikipedia). read
Studies
Richard F. Townsend (curator of the Americas at the Art Institute of Chicago), . Thames & Hudson, Londres, 1992/2009. open
Leonardo López Luján (senior researcher at the Templo Mayor Museum), . Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e História (INAH), México, 1993. open
Esther Pasztory (art historian of Mesoamerica at Columbia University), . Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C., 1974. open
Hartley Burr Alexander (anthropologist at the University of Nebraska), . Marshall Jones Co. / digitalizado no Internet Archive, 1920. open
Name and epithets
The theonym Tlāloc derives from the Classical Nahuatl noun root tlālli ('earth, soil') combined with the stative suffix -oc ('he who lies, is stretched out upon'), literally translating as 'he who lies upon the earth'—a…
In the ancient sources
Tlatelolco Native Testimonies (Sahaguntine Ethnographic Materials), c. 1577 CE.. Documents traditional Nahuatl prayers for rain during droughts, child offerings, and descriptions of Tlalocan.
The myths
The Four Cosmic Urns and the Rainmakers (Tlaloque). According to ancient Nahua cosmological accounts preserved in the Codex Borgia and Sahagún's ethnography, Tlaloc inhabits deep mist-enshrouded caverns inside sacred mo…
Worship and archaeology
The religious system dedicated to Tlaloc incorporated both grand state pageantry and intimate agricultural devotion.
How the god was depicted
Tlaloc possesses one of the most distinctive and persistent iconographical traditions in Mesoamerica. His primary hallmark consists of goggle-like ringed eyes formed by two intertwined serpents whose heads meet above th…
What scholars debate
Teotihuacan Legacy versus Mexica Theological Innovation. Iconographers and Mesoamerican archaeologists (such as Esther Pasztory and Karl Taube) examine the evolutionary links between the Classic Teotihuacan 'Goggle-Eyed…
After antiquity
Tlaloc retains a vivid and enduring place within modern Mexican cultural identity and folklore. When the 168-ton Coatlinchan monolith was transported through the streets of Mexico City on April 16, 1964, an unseasonal,…
Did you know?
Unlike the standard practice of cremation for Aztec nobility, those who died by water or lightning were buried intact in the earth with facial seed markings to enter Tlalocan.
Codex relic
Jars of the Waters. Four sacred jars that hold the beneficial rain, the drought, the destructive frost, and the floods.
The rest of this scroll is sealed
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