Tláloc
Tláloc is an Aztec deity associated with rain, storms, fertility, and water. His power encompassed both life-giving rainfall and destructive floods.
Aztec religion: The religious traditions and practices of the Mexica and other Nahua peoples of central Mexico. Tláloc belonged to a pantheon whose rites connected divine powers with political and agricultural life.
Templo Mayor: The principal double temple of Tenochtitlan, dedicated to Huitzilopochtli and Tláloc. Its paired shrines placed Tláloc beside the Mexica patron deity at the empire's ceremonial center.
Aztec mythology: The body of myths and divine traditions of the Mexica and related Nahua peoples. Tláloc's stories and powers belong to this wider mythological system.
Chaac: The Maya rain deity associated with storms, agricultural fertility, and lightning. Chaac occupies a comparable rain-god role in Maya traditions, but within a different religious system.
Tlalocan: The paradise associated with Tláloc, where those who died through water-related causes were believed to dwell. This afterlife made Tláloc's waters sources of both danger and blessed abundance.
Mount Tlaloc: A mountain east of the Basin of Mexico associated with Tláloc and rain rituals. Pilgrimages and offerings connected the deity to a major sacred landscape.
Teotl: A Nahuatl concept of sacred or divine power, often expressed through particular deities and forces. Tláloc embodies a sacred power associated with rain, fertility, and destructive water.
Cocijo: The Zapotec deity of rain and lightning, prominent in ancient Oaxaca. Cocijo shows how neighboring cultures represented storm powers through distinct divine traditions.
Aztec human sacrifice: Ritual killing practiced in several Mesoamerican societies, including the Mexica, as an offering to deities. Some rites for Tláloc included children, whose tears were associated with rainfall.
Tlaloc vessel: A ceramic vessel in the form of Tláloc, found as an offering in the Templo Mayor precinct. Its placement in a ritual deposit links the deity's imagery to water and fertility offerings.