"Stone of the Sun" fits without doubt, though only partially since it is really "Stone of the Sun and of Venus."
Concerning the position in which the Aztecs maintained it, we cannot bring ourselves to admit that it was placed horizontally. Incredible and even absurd to sculpture, with infinite art and labor, such marvelous works that they should remain almost concealed! Nevertheless, Seler, following Chavero in this as in some other points, holds that the purpose of the stone was the practicing of sacrifices upon it, attempting to identify it with a si mple cuauhxicalli, which had wrought upon it the face of the sun and the signs of the days. It is well understood that this stone was something of much less importance that the relief of the museum, synthesis of the history of the world and of the science of the aborigines. Much less can we admit, as Mrs. Nuttall claims in her erudite study (Key-Notes of Ancient American Civilizations) that it was placed in the ceiling of a building with relief downward, in such a position that certain of the symbols were to the east; the thesis is so strange that we will not discuss it.
No, the central Tonatiuh, in the height of the zenith, with the claws opened, magnificently suspended in space, eloquently proclaims how the natives placed the monument. In the imagination of those men, the sun, when he crosses the firmament suggested an eagle cleaving space in his powerful flight; and, in fact, the star of day and the eagle appear intimately associated in the codices. They called the sun Quauhtleuatl or Quauhtleoauitl, "The Eagle That Ascends." On the other hand, the dates inscribed below the arrow, giving them the meaning ascribed to them by Gama and Chavero, result without sense under the preceding unacceptable theses. The sufficiently probably theory that the stone was used in the mode of a solar timepiece, by means of gnomons, the sockets for which are clearly preserved, also falls to the ground. Lastly, how could the point of the arrow indicate the meridian of Mexico, if the monolith were in a horizontal position?
It is necessary to convince one's self of this: the relief was placed vertically in the great teocalli, as we see it today, although with its face to the south and oriented exactly with reference to the east and west. If this stone is the one described by Durán, we must supposed that they laid it down in order to make sacrifices upon it; but, the cruel ceremony ended and innumerable victims sacrificed to the god of blood, they would again erect it in the only position admissible, that
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