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The rings of the Sun Stone

The Frame of the Fifth Sun

The innermost piece

The whole disc, with this ring lit: the four previous eras and the two claws at the centre. Each ring carries the number of elements its own entry declares; the hollow centre is where the stone puts the face of Tonatiuh.

What it covers

The four previous eras and the two claws at the centre of the Sun Stone, and what each one names.

The full entry is in Spanish, and here is why

What you have read above is this project's own summary of the frame of the fifth sun. The full entry — the part that rests on the sixteenth-century sources — has not been translated, and that is a decision rather than an omission.

We chose not to touch the primary text. Those sections quote Sahagún, Durán and the codices in their own words, often in sixteenth-century Castilian. A quotation carried across stops being a quotation: it loses the register, the ambiguity and the exact wording someone might want to check against a facsimile.

In Spanish the entry carries:

Read the full entry in the original Spanish → Nahuatl names and terms are identical in both versions.

How to cite this page

Alma Mexica, «The Frame of the Fifth Sun», The rings of the Sun Stone. Revised 2026-09-17. https://almamexica.org/en/anillo/marco-quinto-sol/