account of Fray Diego Durán, invoked by Don Alfredo Chavero to demonstrate that this is the monument of Axayácatl, possesses much importance; but it does not command complete confidence, since it may refer to another stone. No one is ignorant of how many confusions have been produced in this direction, insistently calling, for example, a "sacrificial stone " a monument which has nothing of that character, or declaring another to be a "gladiatorial stone" which is totally dissimilar to one. There are reasons for admitting that the relief of the museum was the stone described by the friar; but until now it has not been proved, and we believe that Senor Chavero worked upon a contestable supposition.
Although the date inscribed in the frame corresponds to the date 1479, of the reign of Axayácatl, it corresponds also to the date 699 of the vulgar era, 5096 from the Creation of the world in the Toltec chronology; and as we read this last number in the figures that adorn the body of the serpents, and precisely the extreme triangles of the serpents indicate the frame with their tips, it would not be absurd to understand the thought of the artist in this mode: the stone commemorates the year 5096, which was 13-ácatl in the chronological series. Consulting the tables of the calendar of the Indians it is seen that in fact the year 699 was 13-ácatl.
Therefore the date with which we deal will not by itself alone decide the problem, since it gives occasion to two apparently legitimate interpretations. But we believe it possible to read, and actually without violence, a frankly Aztec date in the glyphs of the relief. Already we have said how it is met, counting one by one the ciphers stamped on the scales or divisions of the serpents. These divisions are 24; each one inclosing the glyph of fire, its value complete would amount to 52 years; but the half circle added to each scale indicates that only half is to be taken, that is to say, 26. This gives us 624 years; summing these to the 5,096 before read, we get the number 5,720. The number issues, so to say, from the body of the serpents, added to the actual elements those which their position shows are past. We might attribute their complete value to the scales: they represent in this manner 1,248 years which summed with the 416 of the little bars distributed in the bodies reaches precisely the number 1,664; but this is not the actual date, but the future end of the current age. When the artist engraved the half-circles, it is reasonable to assume that he had a definite purpose: his entire problem consisted in distributing the elements.
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