Xiuhtecuhtli, whose name means "turquoise lord" in the Nahuatl language, was the Aztec "new fire" god. The Aztecs kept a "holy fire" continuously burning in the Fire Temple at Tenochtitlan ...

The history is complicated, but the name Aztec ... of the gods were understandably hesitant to sacrifice themselves. It was Nanahuatzin, the humble, pustulous one, who jumped into the fire first.

according to Aztec mythology, sacrificed himself to the fire and emerged to become the sun. Kristina Killgrove is a staff writer at Live Science with a focus on archaeology and paleoanthropology news.