date; but as they delayed a century (104 years) in consolidating and regulating the calendar, they adopted the year 700 for the chronological beginning.
Ah well, the monument of the museum shows the two dates clearly: in the glyphs on the backs of the serpents, which summed with the 104 years of the meeting of the heads give the number 5,096, and in the glyphs at the margin of the stone, alluding to the facts already passed, which express the number 4,992. In order to confirm it with noonday clearness, here is the character Ce técpatl, joined to the face of Tonatiuh in a prominent part of the relief; here are also the four cosmogonic ages; here at the edge of the stone the hieroglyphs alluding to the three ages completed. The reference could not be more explicit. The monolith appears worked expressly to record the facts discussed at the memorable assembly of the astronomers, that “movement of the heavens and the calamities that have occurred since the creation of the world.” Already we know what these were: Chavero has read them to perfection in the rectangles which surround the naolin: Ehecatonatiuh, Tletonatiuh, Atonatiuh, and Tlaltonatiuh, which was the present, initiated by Ce técpatl: the ages, suns, and catastrophes of the air, fire, water, and earth. Already we know the meaning of the “movement of the heavens,” that it was nothing else than the cycles of 104 and 416 years, determined by the harmonious interlocking of the periods of the sun and of Venus, which is what the union of the magnificent serpents symbolizes.
And what is the native year 5097 in our chronology? The synchronological tables, Ixtlilxóchitl, and the Anales, each in its own style, tell us: This Ce técpatl, commencement of the Toltec epoch within the fourth age of the world , corresponds to 700 of the vulgar era, when the compatriots of Huemántzin declared their new history begun and founded the second Tula, or, what is more probable, elected their monarch Mixcoamazátzin, as Chavero says. Torquemada gives the same year, but changes the king’s name to Totepeuh; and Motolinía varies only by six years, since he says that the present age commenced in 694, while the tables prove that the Ce técpatl mentioned by Ixtlilxóchitl could only be 700.[1] So many testimonies give force; it might
- ↑ Further, the narratives of the history of the Aztecs and their precedessors, the Culhuas (who were Toltecs), which were ordered to be written down by the daughter of Motecuhzoma, Doña Isabel, and which were published by Señor Icazbalceta, coincide in assigning to the first king a year of the eighth century, which is notably near to the year 700. Certainly the princess utilised the services of some truly learned native priest.
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