Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), have suggested that the high percentage of female remains in the Hueyi Tzompantli (Great Skull-rack) are associated with the origin myth of Huitzilopochtli.

The Hueyi Tzompantli is a skull rack located near the ruins of the Templo Mayo, in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City, Mexico).

The Hueyi Tzompantli was used for the public display of human skulls, typically those of war captives or other sacrificial victims, and was built in three stages during the time of the Tlatoani Ahuízotl government, between AD 1486 and 1502.

Ahuitzotl, meaning “Water Thorny”, was the eighth Aztec ruler, the Huey Tlatoani of the city of Tenochtitlan. During his reign, Ahuitzotl supervised a major rebuilding of Tenochtitlan and the expansion of the Templo Mayor in the year 8 Reed (AD 1487). Ahuitzotl also conquered the Mixtec, Zapotec, and other peoples from Pacific Coast of Mexico down to the western part of Guatemala, more than doubling the size of lands under Aztec dominance.

In a new study by archaeologist, Raúl Barrera Rodríguez, it is suggested that the high percentage of female remains in the Hueyi Tzompantli are associated with the myth of the confrontation between Coyolxauhqui, the lunar goddess, and Huitzilopochtli, the patron of the Aztec who was the solar and war deity.