the commentators do not study and which we believe has not been interpreted. What can be the meaning of this elaborate tree located precisely with this date? Trees are usually the representation of cycles and grand periods, as may be seen in the Palenque tablet and in a multitude of codices. Perhaps it is then the symbol of the coxcaxíhuitl, the sacred cycle which had just then concluded. We will add that the Tira de Tepechpan has with the same year divisions which seem to mark the end and beginning of counts.
Lastly, omitting altogether any transcendental allusion, cosmogonic, mythical, or cyclical, the little bars of the body of the serpents, which terminate in the date of the tablet, give this most simple and perhaps incontrovertible reading: from the beginning of our history until the present year (13-ácatl) have passed 416 years.
In résumé, if the monolith was finished in 1419 as is inferred from the text of Durán, there can be no doubt as to the motive that inspired the work. We insist upon the fact that the stone agrees with the precious Tira del Museo, proving unimpeachably its authenticity. The race of Tenoch did not begin its march either in 648, or 820, or 902, or 1116, or 1160, or 1168, or in 1194, as Buelna, Durán, the Ramírez Codex, Clavijero, Humboldt, the Vatican Codex, Chavero, Garcia Cubas, and other authorities say; but in the year 1064. The learned Gama and Veytia are right; the notices of Chimalpahin are good. This writer declares that the first ceremony of the new fire was celebrated by the Aztecs at Acahualtzinco in 1091 and that 27 years before they had started from Aztlan, which would be 1064. The Tira del Museo places the beginning of the march in Ce técpatl, 27 years before the first new fire. The Codex Aubin, on its part, affirms that in 1507 the Aztecs completed the eighth century of their annals, kindling the new fire: and, in fact, from 1091 to 1507 there are eight periods of 52 years, which was the sacred Cycle of the Indians. This document also places the exodus 27 years before the first new fire.
The relief and the Tira del Museo then fix with apparent definiteness one of the most disputed and important dates of the history of ancient Mexico.[1] The Aztecs, in boats, sallied from a place which we will call Aztlan, Culhuacan, or what you please, in the year of 1064 of the Christian Era wandering for the space of 260 years, significant cycle, until founding the metropolis of what was later a proud empire. And this is a new proof that the city of Tenochtitlan was founded in 1323, since it is already known how the natives adjusted the capital
- ↑ See our study, La fundación de Tenochtitlan.
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