On the edge of Mexico City's famed Zócalo plaza, next to the ruins of the Aztec sacred pyramid known ... Huitzilopochtli—their patron god of the sun and of war—to the pantheon of exalted ...

In fact, the mask's raised turquoise may depict the wart-faced god Nanahuatzin, who, according to Aztec mythology, sacrificed himself to the fire and emerged to become the sun.

Here, in this store of unborn souls, they waited until the gods decided ... Eclipses, the Aztec believed, threatened pregnancy. The Tzitzimitl—astral deities visible when the sun was in eclipse ...