THE STONE OF THE SUN AND THE FIRST CHAPTER OF
THE HISTORY OF MEXICO
The famous stone of the Archaeological Museum of Mexico, from the moment of its discovery, has given occasion that men of ability and eminence should interest themselves in it.
Rare must be the traveler who does not admire the architecture of the metropolitan cathedral, whose towers, crowned by bell-shaped terminations, majestically distinguish it among all the basilicas of the world. It was precisely the author of a considerable part of this façade, and in particular of the towers, Don José Damián Ortiz de Castro, who made the discovery of the stone, under the pavement of the Plaza Principal, on the seventeenth of December of the year 1790.
They were about to bury it anew, imitating an archbishop who two centuries before had been guilty of so strange a blunder; fortunately the viceroy of the colony at the time was a man of the character of the second Count of Revillagigedo, Don Juan Vincente de Güemes Pacheco de Padilla. This able and progressive governor opposed the execution of their plan, ordering that educated individuals should take charge of the stone, that they should measure and study it, and that it should be transported to the Royal University and placed in a public place “where it should be forever preserved as a notable monument of Indian antiquity.” With this act the said ruler, one of the most illustrious that New Spain ever had, once more demonstrated that talent and discretion of which he gave so many proofs.
The first to examine the monument with the interest and the scientific rigor which the work merited, and the first to draw and reproduce, with sufficient fidelity, the complicated relief figures upon it, was the illustrious Mexican astronomer, Don Antonio de León y Gama. This same modest and eminent savant was also the first to formulate an interpretation of the figures engraved upon the face of the monument; and his study with reference to it is of such sort that, although not final nor entirely correct, it has not only given the basis for all subsequent scientific studies, but remains a classic in the matter. Even today, when the decipherment of the monument goes largely
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