Dr. Bob Visits the “Aztec Calendar Stone”
- Dr Bob
- May 6, 2025
- 7 min read
Updated: Jul 30
Question
How does the Aztec Sun Stone preserve a memory of the global Flood while revealing the loss of the biblical covenant calendar after the Tower of Babel?
Application
Looking closely at ancient monuments reveals both distorted but recognizable echoes of true biblical history. Studying them strengthens our confidence in Scripture and highlights the importance of the covenant relationship God established with His people through timekeeping.
In this Lesson, Dr. Bob visits the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City and stands before the massive Aztec Sun Stone (often called the Calendar Stone). He explores its size, symbols, calendars, and the four previous “Suns” or ages of the world, one of which was destroyed by flood, while contrasting Mesoamerican timekeeping with the seven-day covenant week rooted in Creation and preserved among the descendants of Noah.
Supplemental Information
The Aztec Sun Stone measures about 12 feet in diameter and weighs about 25 tons. It was found by the Spanish in the early 1500s, buried because they considered it an evil sign, rediscovered in the 17th century, displayed initially in a local building, and later moved to the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City. For years it has been referred to as the Aztec Calendar Stone. It does have calendar elements, yet rather than serving as a calendar people would use to mark ordinary days, it actually commemorates an event.
At the center is the Sun God. Around him are four symbols representing the four eras or four Suns. These mark the four periods of creation that this earth has gone through, periodically being destroyed and then recreated: initially destroyed by jaguar, then by wind, then by fiery rain, and finally by flood. We now live in the fifth Sun or fifth world, which is said to be destroyed by shaking (earthquakes).
The stone displays 20 symbols that represent the 20 different periods of time (the 20 months). Their system used 13 days in what we would refer to as a week, combined with the 20 periods, to form a 260-day religious calendar. Alongside it ran the sun calendar of 365 days: 360 normal days plus five catch-up or make-up days at the end. Those five days were considered holy days, yet also unlucky. People would not make oaths, promises, or wishes during that period. The 365-day count is remarkably accurate and contains no lunar-cycle element, unlike many other calendars around the world.
The 260-day religious calendar and the 365-day Earth calendar function like two rotating disks that coincide every 52 years. That alignment was regarded as a Holy Day or the coming of a new sun. There is also a long count calendar that, like the Jewish calendar, counts from the days of creation (or, in this case, from the beginning of the current era). The December 2012 date that drew Western attention marked the end of one long-count cycle. From a Western point of view people looked for a cataclysm and an ending. Mesoamerican peoples themselves saw it as the beginning of a new cycle, a continuation rather than an absolute end.
The 13-day week is unique and helps us understand an important contrast. While figures such as Quetzalcoatl and others have been viewed as potential foreshadows of Christ or Christ figures, and while there may be cultural connections to groups linked with Israel (whether as the Book of Mormon describes with the Nephites or not), there is no foundational consistency with the days of the week. When we look at the biblical days of the week we are not simply dividing up a month. We are dealing with a covenant period. Six days of creation followed by a seventh day of rest respond to the covenant God made with His people. That pattern is fundamental and foundational. It is nonexistent in the system shown on the stone.
The places in the ancient world where we see the seven-day calendar in the greatest antiquity are among peoples such as the Akkadians and Sumerians (referred to in the video as the Acadians and Samarians). That fits because those groups were among the most direct descendants of Noah. The seven-day calendar arose in that region of the world. After the scattering of the peoples, one of the things that was lost was this covenant relationship of keeping time. Whether in China, India, or Mesoamerica, the pattern was lost. In China and India the seven-day calendar was later reintroduced (over a thousand years ago in China), and with it returned the covenant nature of timekeeping. That recovery is not seen among the peoples who produced this stone.
The Spanish did not simply destroy the temples when they arrived. They reused the materials to build churches and other buildings on the same sites. We see similar reuse with the stones of the ancient Parthenon and other significant Greek buildings. Later civilizations often lacked the technology or the culture to reproduce that level of expertise themselves. This flies in the face of the idea of primitive man gradually becoming more advanced. What we actually observe are ancient advanced cultures whose materials and iconography were later reused by people who no longer fully understood the original meanings of the symbols.
When the Sun Stone was discovered it was assumed to be evil and was buried upside down so that no one would see the face of the sun god. It most likely originally served as a gladiatorial stone: a raised platform on which ancient warriors battled, their blood was spilled, and the offering was made to the god. The tongue of the central Sun God figure is shaped as a sacrificial knife, making the association with blood sacrifice clear.
Montezuma, the Aztec ruler in Tenochtitlan, was 52 years old when the Spanish arrived. That age marked the end of a full 52-year cycle, so he likely saw that his own days were coming to an end. Whether the people viewed such moments as pure cataclysm or as a transition into the next cycle, the evidence leans toward the latter. The stone itself would have rested on the ground for sacrificial use rather than hanging on a wall.
Scientific observation of the heavens confirms the design described in Scripture. The precise 365-day solar year recorded on the stone demonstrates careful, accurate tracking of the earth’s orbit around the sun. Such precision requires both intelligence and sustained attention to the created order. It is consistent with the capacity God built into humanity from the beginning and with knowledge retained by post-Flood peoples who still carried portions of earlier understanding. The global Flood of Noah’s day was a genuine historical catastrophe that reset human populations. Cultural memories of a world destroyed by water appear in many places precisely because the event actually happened. At the same time, the loss of the seven-day covenant week after the scattering at Babel shows how quickly foundational truth can be corrupted once the relationship with the Creator is broken. Cultures continued to look to the heavens for signs, seasons, days, and years, yet without the covenant framework they became open to distorted meanings. The Sun Stone stands as both an impressive archaeological monument and a clear illustration of what occurs when that covenant connection is lost.
Scripture References
Genesis 1:14 “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:”
Genesis 2:2-3 “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.”
Genesis 7:11-12 “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.”
Genesis 7:17-19 “And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.”
Genesis 8:1 “And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;”
Genesis 11:1-9 “And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”
Exodus 20:8-11 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
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