When the Spanish conquered the Aztec empire, they recognized the stone’s power and buried it face-down to sever the people’s connection to their past. This act of Damnatio Memoriae was an attempt to erase an entire identity. However, the stone’s precision—akin to interlocking gears—revealed that the Aztecs possessed an advanced understanding of celestial mechanics that remains puzzling to modern engineers.

The Aztecs viewed time as a giant, rotating machine consisting of two primary cycles:

• The Solar Calendar: A 365-day cycle regulating agriculture and daily survival.
• The Sacred Calendar: A 260-day cycle that determined ‘destiny.’

Every individual’s identity, including their name, was dictated by the day they were born within this sacred system, leaving no room for personal choice in one’s life path.

The Aztecs believed we are currently living in the ‘Fifth Sun,’ or the fifth world. Their history was a record of previous cataclysms:

• 1st Sun: Devoured by giant creatures.
• 2nd Sun: Destroyed by catastrophic winds.
• 3rd Sun: Consumed by rain of fire.
• 4th Sun: Ended by a massive global flood.

They believed our current world is destined to end in a violent earthquake, a fate they sought to delay through ritual sacrifice.

Every 52 years, the two calendars aligned in a period known as the ‘Binding of the Years.’ This was a time of intense existential anxiety. Much like the mystery surrounding doomsday preparations, the Aztecs would extinguish all fires and break their pottery, waiting in terror to see if the sun would rise again or if the gears of time had finally stopped.