which permit their identification. Both heads protrude the tongues, joining or touching them together in the clearest fashion; here is symbolized the thought of the relief. Archaeologists admit that the tongue symbolizes light in the idols and pictographs representing stars, and it is not possible to doubt after the demonstration which, with the peculiar sagacity in which no one has equaled him, Señor Chavero gave upon this point, studying the greenstone figure, discovered in Papantla, which in place of the tongue presents the mouth perforated for the material passage of light. In a similar manner, the face of Tonatiuh, central to the relief, has the tongue out signifying the irradiation of light through the universe. This considered, what could that be which in so graphic a fashion joins these deities who peer out from throats of time, metaphorically figured by the serpents? The light itself; but their special lights, since here different beings are in question, that is to say, the lights of special celestial bodies. It would be impossible to indicate in more expressive and artistic form the concurrence of two chronological periods determined by the combination of stars which renew the same relative positions which they had before.
Let us undertake to identify the deities; if known, it will be easy to recognize the cycle. The figure of the left semicircumference of the relief is undoubtedly the sun himself. It is distinguished by the glyph of the forehead, identical with that which adorns the face of the central huehueteotl, although without the two numerals which accompany that. The head on the opposite side has not this glyph. The ear ornament, similar to that of Tonatiuh, distinguishes it; the face with the other serpent lacks this. The head of the solar snake has before the nose the sign of the double cane, a character closely related with Tonatiuh and with Xiuhtecuhtli, as is seen in the codices. Ome ácatl (2-cane) is one of the various names of the sun, and two are, in fact, the figures of the cane here represented. Others have recognized in the glyph a handful of herbs, giving us, anyway, the name of Xiuhtecuhtli (lord of the herb and the year). As little does this symbol appear in the face of the opposite serpent.
On the other hand, the figure on the right shows a netting clearly defined, peculiar to Quetzalcóatl in his multiple representations; in front of the nose is a symbolical glyph which we cannot identify because the stone is badly destroyed in this part. . . . . But that which in a special mode distinguishes the two beings is the ear ornament (nacochtli), which is lacking in the figure to the right and identical with
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