10 Pesos Pattern, Cabeza De Coyolxauhqui, No Obverse Legend, Copper

In 1978, construction crews excavating for a new building in downtown Mexico City accidentally unearthed the massive Coyolxauhqui monolith near the Templo Mayor — one of the most significant archaeological finds in Mexican history. The Banco de México moved quickly to explore the image for coinage, producing a series of pattern pieces in multiple compositions and with varying obverse configurations. This copper example, lacking the obverse legend present on other trials, represents an intermediate stage in that design approval process before the motif reached circulation in different form.