The Nauvoo Temple’s sunstone was designed by William Weeks, a Latter-day Saint architect. William created the face of the sun stone to resemble Masonic representations of the sun. The sun stones were made from the star stones and moon stones that also adorned the temple. Many believe that the stones were designed to represent the three degrees of glory; however, this is false. The stones represent symbols from Revelation 12:1: stars, sun and moon. This also explains why the three symbols are not placed in the same order as the three degrees of glory (sun, moon, stars) in the Nauvoo Temple. The woman described in Revelation has a crown of stars, is clothed with the sun, and has the moon under her feet. This explains why the stars were near the top of the temple and the moon was towards the bottom with the sun in the middle.

Although the sunstone was not originally designed to represent degrees of glory, many people have come to use and understand the sunstone as a symbol of the celestial realm. This is why it is common for Latter-day Saints to display sunstone statues in their homes as a symbol of the temple or the celestial realm.

Three of the original thirty sunstones, each weighing two and a half tons, survived the destruction of the Nauvoo Temple (two are complete sunstones and one is a partial sunstone). They are all on display in different locations: the Navuo Temple Visitor Center, the Joseph Smith Historic Center (the unrestored partial Sunstone), and the Smithsonian (next to the original Star Spangled Banner). In 1989, the Smithsonian paid $100,000 for this original sunstone. It is considered a unique piece of America’s religious lore and is a notable piece of history because of its size. The sun stone is also valuable because it represents a church of American origin.

When the Nauvoo Temple was rebuilt, thirty sunstones (identical to the originals) were included. The Salt Lake Temple was the second temple to be built with sunstones, although they were different from the sunstones in the Nauvoo Temple. The Salt Lake Temple sunstones are faceless and show the full sun. The original plan was for the sunstones to be gilded in gold and also for the sun to have a face. However, since the temple was made of granite, it was difficult to carve a face out of the sun stone. This is why the Salt Lake Temple sunstones are not identical to the Nauvoo sunstones.

Several of the Latter-day Saint temples have different variations of the sunstone. Other sunstone temples include Washington DC; Portland, Oregon; The Vegas, Nevada; Bounty, Utah; Mount Timpanogos, Utah; Bogota Colombia; Preston, England; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Palmyra, New York; Columbia River, Washington; Newport Beach, California; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and many others.