were erroneous, gives an indirect confirmation. But the date is not read upon the monument, nor would it be possible to find it there, admitting that it was worked before that event in memory of the meeting of the Toltec astronomers. There arises one question then: if the constructor was that people, how did its monument come to be in the teocalli of a Mexican city?
Let us agree first that the people of Tenoch considered itself the heir of the Toltec culture, and that it had accepted it almost in its entirety; on that account it is often compared to the Roman conquerors, conquered themselves in turn by the superiority of Greek culture.
We know that they belonged to one ethnic family, since both spoke Nahuatl. Moreover, a multitude of circumstances exist which permit the affirmation that the Mexicans descended directly from the Toltecs, with whom they had a very close relationship. It would not be strange then that, encountering a monument which in so notable a fashion summarized the wisdom classic for them, they should carefully preserve it and even erect it in their greatest temple. The question of transportation as little involves difficulty, supposing that it was transported from the pyramids or from Tula. Taking into consideration the data of geology, modern archaeologists recognize that the rock mass must have been transported, at least from the mountains of Aculco, the nearest locality where this kind of basalt is to be found. If the Aztecs could transport a monolith of 30 tons' weight from there, they could have done so from a greater distance, for example, from Teotihuacan, sacred city concerning which more and more reasons accumulate for maintaining that it was the Toltec metropolis. The pyramids are not much farther from Mexico than Chalco; and it will be remembered that scarcely two or three decades ago there was brought from there a monument, the one called Omecíhuatl, goddess of water or the moon, almost as large as the relief of the museum.
We come now to another consideration. Ixtlilxóchitl expressly declares against the thesis of various authorities, that the past ages were three and that the Toltecs initiated the fourth in the year Ce técpatl. He says that the fourth age "has to finish," a phrase that it was the present one. The sign técpatl, placed in the relief to the left, above the face of the sun, eloquently confirms that assertion: it initiates the epoch which the constructors held as contemporaneous. We know from Gama, Boturini, and other authorities
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