The Stone of the Sun and the First Chapter of the History of Mexico/Comparative archaeological discussion
COMPARATIVE ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCUSSION
Let us proceed to pass in review the more important opinions formulated, in way of interpretation, with regard to the monolith of the museum; let us mention at the same time the monuments and the codices which confirm our views, citing some of those which the stone itself now permits to be understood easily, since once the key is discovered it appears to lift the veil which concealed the enigma of our antiquities. We shall add the filiation of ideas which carried us to the discovery, in order that its origins shall be exactly known, indicating the development of the conception.
Here is the enumeration of the glyphs of the relief:
| 1st | circle— | (a) | Face of the sun, with distinctive signs. |
| 2d | circle— | (b) | Great numerals of the following circle. |
| (c) | Squares or rectangles of the same circle. | ||
| (d) | Dates and signs of this zone. | ||
| 3d | circle— | (e) | Aztec month. |
| 4th | circle— | (f) | Groups of fives. |
| 5th | circle— | (g) | Solar glyphs. |
| 6th | circle— | (h) | Pentagons or trapezoidal figures. |
| (i) | Rays and asps. | ||
| 7th | circle— | (j) | Flames or feathers from the inner border of the serpent bodies. |
| (k) | Groups of four little bars in the body of the serpents. | ||
| (l) | The serpents themselves, with their parts; scales or divisions of the body; numeral dots and tyings of the tails. | ||
| (m) | Date inscribed in rectangular frame. | ||
| Margin of the relief. |
(n) | Glyphs—técpatl and iztpapálotl—of the projection of the relief. | |
| (o) | Numerals distributed in various parts of the relief. | ||
| 7th | circle— | (p) | Heads of the serpents with the plumage decoration. |
These glyphs may be grouped as follows:
| I. | Dates of the relief. Ltters b, d, k, l, m, n. |
| II. | Solar glyphs. Letters a, g. |
| III. | Cycles. Letters a, b, c, f, g, h, k, p. |
| IV. | Division of the day. Letter i. |
| V. | Ages of the Indian cosmogony. Letter c. |
a) All have seen the image of the sun in this central face. It is Tonatiuh or Xiuhtecuhtli (“Lord of the Day”) under the especial form of the Huehuetéotl. It is an old sun, a huehuetiliztli, which represents the entire Indian century. The sign which adorns the forehead constitutes one of the enigmas of the monument and has given rise to the most divergent opinions: among others that it is the phonetic of the word Mexico, an unsustainable supposition. Its importance is, beyond doubt, capital. It has been claimed that the two numerals that accompany it express Ome ácatl, symbol of the correction of the calendar. No thesis is apparently more substantial, more interesting, more plausible. There is none which we ourselves would more desire to see fully confirmed. If established, it would corroborate the hypothesis that the monolith was Aztec work, since the transfer of the initial of the year from Ce tochtli to Ome ácatl, which is the essence of the correciton, was realized in the year 1091 (as Chimalpahin and Gama claim), or in 1143 (which is what Orozco y Berra says), or in 1455 (according to the assertion of Don Alfredo Chavero); under all three suppositions it was the work of the Mexicans. If then the stone of the museum bears inscribed upon the most visible portion of the relief, the sign of this most important operation, there is no doubt that the monument belongs completely to Mexican civilization.
Also it has been claimed that Ome ácatl was a second name for the sun, the reason why many of his representations show that sign. Gama states that Ome ácatl was a deity and a particularly propitious sign, for which reason they placed his sign anywhere possible.
But it is a fact what, the more carefully it is examined, the sign in question is not a cane. Chavero himself came to that conclusion, and radically changing his view, claimed that the sign was técpatl and that it referred to Mars, planet symbolized in the central face; a thesis in all points arbitrary. (See the work Dioses astronómicos de los antiguos Mexicanos.) Neither does the glyph have anything of técpatl nor does it symbolize Mars, but the star Venus; nor can the image at the center of the stone, with the splendid rays which surround it, be confounded with anything except the radiant face of Tonatiuh.
Incapable of categorically undoing the difficulty, we will only venture a conjecture: the glyph considered is that distinctive of the orb itself, since it also appears on the forehead of the solar snake of the same relief. The numerals might indicate that the chronological value of the face ought to be taken twice in some computation. What might this be? The central zone of the relief, circumscribed by the serpents, by its position on the face of the monument easily denotes the present epoch, or the historic sun. In this, of course, there should continue, as in the previous ones, 1664 years. The elements of the circles which compose it (and this is explained by the repetition, at first sight without object) actually give the number:
| Circle of the glyphs of Quetzalcóatl or pentagons. . | 416 years |
| Circle of the solar glyphs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 104 years |
| Circle of the groups of fives, 260 Venus years or . . | 416 years |
| Four great numbers affecting the face. . . . . . . . . | 416 years |
| Two numerals upon the forehead of the huehueteotl | 208 years |
| The very face of Huehueteotl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 104 years |
| ------------------ | |
| Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 1,164 years |
c) Of the cosmogonic ages figured in the four rectangles, we know nothing to add to the masterly study of Don Alfredo Chavero; but we understand him to have erred as to their duration, determined by the very numerals inscribed in the rectangles. The illustrious archaeologist did not restrict his attention to them, preferring to resort to the chronology of the Vatican Codex, not entirely happy in our judgment. We have elsewhere stated that each dot represents 416 years, and the four 1,664, datum confirmed in Ixtlilóchiti and by the stone itself (Abadiano erroneously attributed 104 years to the dots, which would give 1,664 to the combined rectangles, or of the four epochs, supposition which does not agree with the testimonies of the codices and particularly not with those of the Texcocan historian). According to this cosmogony, the world should have concluded 6,656 years from the creation. Each age reached 4 cycles of 416 years, (lxtlilxóchitl adds one bundle of years to the first epochs: and secondary catastrophies were accustomed to happen in the intermediate cycles.)
The monolith of Tenanco expresses analogous ideas: each age is accompanied by three large dots and two little ones, and there are bands inclosing them which below are conventionalized into knots, except the last epoch, which shows that it was not considered as closed. The cubical stone of the museum, to which we have already referred, upon whose lateral faces appear the emblems of Ehecatonatiuh, Tletonatiuh, Atonatiuh, and Tlaltonatiuh, with the four numerals corresponding, carries a border formed of solar and Venus glyphs identical with those of the relief, new proof that time was counted by the interlocking of the two celestial bodies. Neither the upper nor the lower face bear inscription or any design. It may be inferred that there was no fifth age, a thesis incompatible with the fundamental tetranary conception the Mexicans considered themselves within the epoch initiated by the Toltecs.
In his seventh Relación, published by M. Remí Siméon (Paris, 1889), written about 1629, Chimalpahin affirms that then they found themselves in the year 6471 of the world, that is to say, within the fourth age, which was not yet terminated; less would it have been terminated at the time of the working of the monolith.
There is a tact that deserves to be noted. The Codex Fuenleal narrates the history of the world, with the description of the four successive suns. It declares the first to have been controlled by Tetzcatlipoca; the second by Quetzalcóatl; the following was presided over by Tlaloc; and the fourth and last of the suns remained under the influence of the goddess Chalchiuhtlicue, divinity of water. Ah well, the tiger (océlotl), figured in the upper rectangle of the left of the solar face, joined to a great técpatl beginning of the chronology, presents in the ear, according to certain authors, the mamalhuaztli, and according to the opinion of others, the distinctive attribute of Tezcatlipoca; the mask of the rectangle to the right is the well-known mask of Ehécatl, second name of the god of the air, Quetzalcóatl; in the inferior rectangle of this same side, a face is believed to have been recognized similar to that of Tlaloc; and the last of the rectangles shows vaguely the outline of a female face, which might be that of the goddess “of the emerald skirt.” This coincidence is very curious. The same order of the ages is encountered in the document called “Anonimo de Gama” or “Chimalpopoca”; in accordance with the stone, Tlaltonatiuh is the first. The data of the Codex Fuenleal differ indeed from those of the relief as to the duration of the epochs: the document assigns to them respectively 676, 676, 364, and 312 years, or 2,028 in all; this agrees neither with the tetranary concept nor with the figures of Ixtlilxóchitl.
As to the figure of the naolin, the arc of a circle which it embraces represents very well the amplitude of the movement of the sun toward both sides of the line of the equinoxes; a savant so illustrious as Sir Norman Lockyer has declared that “the symbol figures correctly and appropriately the annual course of the sun” (citation or Mrs. Nuttall).
b) We have said how we interpret the four great numerals of the following zone, distinct in size and details from the fifth one placed below the naolin. They affect the central image, clearly expressing 4 huehuetiliztli or Indian centuries. There are those who see in them and the numeral below the five nemoteni, mistaken assumption which does not fit well with the etymological meaning (“superfluous, extra, useless days”). In fact, these are encountered, almost concealed, to the number of four, under the claws of the snakes, in accordance with the deprecative and superstitious idea which the Mexicans attributed to them.
d) Concerning the dates inscribed in this zone we have no contingent to bring. The thesis of Gama may be admitted with respect to those whose general interpretation of the monument, we may say in passing, is the only one among all those that have been offered that maintains a respectable footing. Our reading of the stone is not unreconcilable with the thesis that the relief might serve in the manner of a sundial, vertically placed, with the face toward the south, and that the shadows of some gnomons have indicated the hours of the day and the time of the spring equinox and the summer solstice. For the great archaeologist these two dates are the Ce quiáhuitl and Ome ozomatli, which are seen below the naolin (although in truth, we do not read Ome, two but Chicome, seven, ozomatli). The fact is easy to prove by calculation, or experimentally by constructing a model in plaster, arranging it in the form indicated by Gama and observing the shadows on the corresponding days March 21 and June 21). Chavero believes another thing: that the dates indicate the days on which the sun passes by the zenith of the city (May 17 and June 26), which is possible and can be tested by experiment; but it cannot be fitted with the theory that the stone had to be placed horizontally. Various modern interpreters of the stone have fallen into this error; adopting in general the explanation of the dates proposed by Gama, they claim that the stone had to be laid down, as Chavero affirms; without observing that the theory of the first archaeologist requires the vertical position of the monolith. Only so can the shadows be produced.
Concerning the symbol Ce técpatl, placed in a prominent part, near to the face of the sun, we know that it represents the beginning of the chronology, beginning of the creation, and the first day of the fourth age of the world, which was the present one for the constructor race (Toltec or Aztec). For such a reason it bears the mamalhuaztli, glyph of the new fire. The count begun with this character necessarily concludes in 13-ácatl, the date inscribed in the frame at the top of the monolith, at the end of 52, 104, 416, and 624, 1,040 or 1,664 years. And all these cycles are read in the stone, but especially that of 416. The nature of the system determines this result, in which may be seen the capital idea of the relief, although omitting the reading of dates alluding to concrete incidents; the present age, begun in Ce técpatl (for this reason the copilli, royal symbol, accompanies the character—idea of Señor del Paso y Troncoso communicated to Señor Batres, although this archaeologist believed that the symbol ruled only one tlalpilli) will end on the day 13-ácatl, upon the completion of the development of the serpent of time.
We repeat that in this may be seen the culminating reading of the relief, and the conception harmonizes perfectly with what we know of the cosmogony and chronology of the Toltecs, with so much the more reason as the initial character of the computations of the Aztecs was tochtli, and not técpatl. The thesis that the monument expresses the ideas and history of that people possesses without doubt extreme substantiality. Nevertheless, it is not absurd to admit that 780 years, of the present historic epoch, the fourth in any case, had passed at the moment of working the stone, 624 of the scales affected by the half-circles, until the founding of Tenochtitlan, in the year 13-ácatl (1323), and 156 more which we take from the dots of the edge or cylindrical projection. With these there is reached the year 1479 (13-ácatl also) of Axayácatl. Because we must agree that the half-circles and the dots were placed with some object, such a mode of thought involves the indirect confirmation that, for whatever reason, the system was considered as established from the beginning of the year 700 of the vulgar era—so prominent in the chronicles—probable beginning of the fourth age of the world in the beliefs of the natives; and reveals that the Mexicans, descendants of the Toltecs, adopted completely the culture of the people of Huemántzin, reproducing its fundamental ideas. Speaking of the Ehecatonatiuh, fourth age of the world in his conception, Henning has said that it "is an event, if not absolutely, at least relatively, modern" (Study of the Date 4-Ahau).
It has been fancied that there are traces of the face of Tláloc in the figure técpatl in the relief: it is certain that what the sign carries is the mamalhuaztli, or the attribute of Tezcatlipoca; it might indicate that the first of the epochs was presided over by this deity, as the Codex Fuenleal affirms; then Ehecatonatiuh would be the historic sun, it being conceived that some have seen in the central face that of Quetzalcóatl, idea truly vigorous. The glyph has at the left its guardian,[1] Tletl, symbol of fire, and the copilli of the kings.
There are not lacking some who think that this figure phonetically expresses the name of Motecuhzoma or that of Chimalpopoca. The copilli also denotes the creative goddess. Sometimes we think that it is the name of the artificer or astronomer maker; or indeed of Cipactli, the first light and the first day, breaking from the divine throne and from the tlachco (ball ground) of heaven; also it might be presumed that the character Ce técpatl, year in which Acamapichtli, the first monarch of Mexico, was elected, joined with the royal copilli, alludes to the beginning of the Tenochco monarchy ; but there would be much to object to, and we strongly prefer to see in the figure the sign of royalty, that is to say, of that which is now in force, with the guardian of the first day: the idea of Señor Troncoso.
There is one fact deserving notice. Conformably with the data of the Codex Borbonico we know that the quecholli or guardian of the year Ce ácatl is Tepeyóllotl. Ah well, the year 1519 of the vulgar era, when the Spaniards arrived at our country, was precisely Ce ácatl. Counting back in the tables, in accordance with the order of the guardians indicated in the codex, it is found that the first day of the year 700 corresponds to the character Tletl. New proof of our reading of the stone. Gama states that in the day Ce técpatl the Indians celebrated one of their principal festivals, consecrating it to the flint knife (técpatl) itself, defined under the name Teotécpatl, this being joined with the festival of fire. This is not opposed to our reading of the monolith, we have said that a part of the hypothesis of the savant remains intact.
We do not believe it inopportune to reproduce here some paragraphs from our Study De Sahagún a Del Paso y Troncoso, which condenses the principal ideas of the interpretation of Gama:
f) The following zone is the one from which we begin to proceed through the field of conjecture, according to the phrase of Don Antonio Peñafiel. It is the circle of the quinaries or numerals distributed in groups of five units. There are in all 260 units of this kind, perfectly counted, but not explained until now.
Chavero and the majority of archaeologists see in these the tonalámatl, sacred reckoning which really consists of just this number of days. But it must not be forgotten that it is distributed in thirteens, and in the zone which we study the thought of making the distribution in groups of five units appears very clear.
In reality it treats of Venus years. The explanation is moreover simple. The period of the planet measures eight solar years, equivalent to five in the Venus calendar, phenomenon unquestionably observed by the natives, as the festival atamalqualiztli proves. In other terms, five synodical movements of Venus, each one of which lasted very near to 584 days, is equivalent to eight years in the solar calendar, knowledge which the aborigines could acquire by observing the march of the planet. This was the origin of the festival which was celebrated every eight years. According to this, the fives represent the five revolutions of the planet which make a set with the solar calendar; to which we add the following: Only five of the twenty-day characters or symbols of the native month were initials of the year in the Venus calendar. The selection then of the groups of five seems perfectly motived, And as the numerals distributed in this form are 260, the indication is of that number of synodical movements of the evening star, that is to say, it treats of 260 Venus years. The number, which also constitutes the basis of the tonalámatl, was sacred, and the period, especially significant, is found in harmony with the other elements of the relief; 260 Venus years adjust themselves to a grand cycle of 416 solar years and equal exactly 584 tonalámatl.
Another proof that these elements do not allude to days, but to years, we shall see in the two objects, which are considered in the next paragraph, in which fives appear combined with glyphs denoting the solar years; it would not be logical to suppose that elements signifying a day should be arbitrarily mixed up with elements signifying a year. This is the error into which have invariably fallen Chavero, Valentini, Abadiano, and most of the interpreters of the monument.
g) Glyphs follow which have been counted by Chavero and other authors; but, except for that archaeologist, who saw in them a cycle of 104 years, without decipherment. They represent solar years, and they are seen combined with the preceding in many astronomical monuments of the museum; in the cubical stone with the four ages of the world of which we have spoken before; in the stone known as the Stone of Tizoc, on whose border Abadiano read the same number of 1,664 which we know represents one of the ages of the world; in a most interesting stone box (tepetlacalli) from Texcoco, which also belongs to the museum, etc., etc.
The finding of the two classes of units in the cuirical stone sufficiently proves that they denote years, since it is not logical to compute in another manner ages of prolonged duration.
The same glyphs, in diverse combinations, appear in a great number of monuments: pages of the codices; a precious vase (cuauhxicali) in Berlin of which Kingsborough published an engraving; the admirable stone of Tepetzuntla, symbolism of Quetzalcóatl, which shows under the teeth the 8 glyphs of the solar years equivalent to the five Venus years which the god has on the forehead; the frieze of Mitla, copied by the great German archaeologist Seler; the figure from a Tacubaya garden which is called Tetzcatzóncatl.
h) No one has deciphered the so-called "pentagons." We identify these glyphs with the conventionalized signs, sufficiently analogous, which adorn the body of the so-called Cipactli of Xochicalco and that of the four serpents of page 72 of the Borgian Codex. Four plumed serpents appear in the codex, with 13 circles distributed over the body (including the eye of the monster). The figure forms a sort of frame within which the initial characters of the Venus year are encountered. We already know that there are five of these. The circles indicate that the combination is separated I3 times in one huehuetiliztli. Each one of the fantastic beings has then the value of 65 Venus or 104 solar years.
Seen with attention, the glyphs of the Cipactli of Xochicalco have no small similarity with the pentagons. It has been said (Rámon Mena) that their outline is that of a snail, relating them to Quetzalcóatl; this is correct, since it concerns a conventionalization of the jewel of that deity which alludes to his marine origin (the deity proceeded from the sea of the east). The giant strombus is truly the most beautiful shell of the Antillean seas and of the Gulf; its hollow interior reproduces the murmur of sea waves; for this reason they adopted it as the emblem of the deity come from that direction. Sahagún, describing the representations the Indians made of him, twice mentions the shells that served him as adornment: "He has a collar of gold, from which hang some very precious sea shells .... some leggings of tiger skin, from the knees down, from which hung some sea shells."
In the pentagons of the relief there is very evident a curve or hollow in the lower part, which in the figures of Xochicalco very clearly presents the outline of an ear or shell. Both characters contain the same symbolism: they are Venus symbols each of which represents 2,920 days, equivalent to eight years. Assuming the planet to be morning star at the beginning, this period having run its course, it will occupy the identical position in the heavens. Ah well, the Cipactli of Xochicalco have thirteen signs, like the groups of pentagons of the relief. Each one, therefore, denotes 65 and the four groups 260 Venus years, which are 416 solar years. The stone, the codex, and the edifice say the same thing. The groups of pentagons might be replaced around the face of the relief by the four serpents of the codex or by the Cipactli of Xochicalco.
The initial page of the Fejervary-Mayer Codex, the page of the cruciform trees of the Vatican Codex B, and others of the most notable pictographic representations are to be read in the same way, as we shall demonstrate further on.
We insist that the pentagons of the stone allude to Venus cycles and not at all to days. Abadiano sees in them the groups of twelve and thirteen intercalary days, which the natives, according to the theory of Gama and Orozco y Berra, added at the end of each 104 years to adjust the calendar with the tropical year. But, apart from the fact that the codices bring no conclusive proofs of such correction, as Seler has shown, we will repeat that the elements of this central part of the magnificent relief are glyphs symbolical of special cycles and of complete years; but in no case of days. These find their representation by means of dots upon the bodies of the serpents and with their own proper characters in the zone outside the sun's face; the other characters of the central part of the stone possess a much larger significance, in consonance with the importance of the monument. The objects of this kind that deal with the representation of a simple year are very few; usually the natives figured knottings or tyings and the cycle of 52 years, which appears with great frequency in the codices and in the inscriptions of stone. It happens thus in the tableland of Mexico the same as in Yucatan; in Mitla and Xochicalco as in the zone of Palenque, Copan, and Quirigua. With greater reason may we suppose analogous meaning in a colossal relief, which is but the Teoamoxtli made stone or the allegory of the world's history, conformable to the cosmogonic and astronomical beliefs of the aborigines. It is obvious that, in an allegory of this kind, the component elements should represent periods of a certain duration.
Let us undertake now to explain rationally the necessity of inscribing four groups of Venus cycles in place of one, since one suffices to indicate the century of the chronological counts, 104 years. We might limit ourselves exclusively to facts, indicating the pages already mentioned of the Borgian, Vatican B, and Fejervary-Mayer codices, which show the frequency with which the native astronomers reputed in their pictographs what we see in the basalt relief. Also the Dresden Codex gives the number of 151,840 days, which are 260 Venus years. But we must explain the data which are observed. The reason of the fact reveals how perfect were the astronomical observations of the ancient inhabitants of America, and to what height their knowledge of the phenomena of space attained. The value of the apparent revolution of Venus not being exactly 584 days, but 583 days 22 hours, 6 minutes, and 14 seconds, it seems that the natives knew this difference, at least as regards the 22 hours over and even a little more. In the development of the series of days, it results that at the end of 104 years (65 Venus years) the calendar of the planet was five days behind with reference to the solar; and the Indians, proceeding as astronomers, had to make some correction. This was secured by initiating in a special calendar (probably reserved for chiefs and priests, and but little known to the vulgar) the second huehuetiliztli, with another five of the twenty day characters, and making them run thirteen times, as the preceding, until terminating a new sacred cycle. This concluded, they continued the falling behind with other five days, making use of the third group of characters; and, finally, at the closing of the fourth cycle of 104 solar years, theoretically have entered into the arrangement, as initial years, all of the twenty day characters of the month, permitting that the new period of 416 years should commence anew with Cipactli. The idea, for which there exist no conclusive proofs, has been very ingeniously suggested by Mrs. Nuttall. Each time that the long-drawn-out period arrived at its end, the calendars of the two stars actually adjusted themselves, at the time when they returned to concur in the same respective position in the firmament. The harmony and beauty of this arrangement are indeed marvelous.
The distribution of the day Signs in the planet's calendar results as follows:
First huehuetiliztli: Cipactli, Cóatl, Atl, Acatl, and Ollin
Second huehuetiliztli: Miquiztli, Itzcuintli, Océlotl, Técpatl, and Ehécatl
Third huehuetiliztli: Ozomatli, Cuáuhtli, Quiáhtitl, Calli, and Mázatl
Fourth huehuetiliztli: Cozcacuáutli, Xóchitl, Cuetzpallin, Tochtli, and Malinalli
The great cycle ended in Malinalli, to begin with Cipactli in the one and the other calendar. We shall see this confirmed in the edifice of Xochicalco, where Malinalli separates the allegorical representatives of 416 years; let us say for the moment that these groups of day symbols are those which are met within the four Serpents of page 12 of the Borgian Codex. Their true significance has eluded the archaeologists until now. Seler limits himself to see in the page mentioned the four parts of the tonalámatl.[2]This would not explain satisfactorily why the monsters have thirteen divisions in the body; by our hypothesis, the thing is simple; they are the number of times which the five chronographic signs run in one huehuetiliztli. In total, 52 occasions: the number of the pentagons of the monolith.
At the same time, the number 151,840 (number of days in 416 solar years) has the notable property, not yet observed so far as we know, of being a multiple, with the difference of a single unit, of the number 9; the characters of the tonalámatl known as the quecholli or acompañados de la noche close in that period a complete round, since in the last day there are superposed two characters in accordance with the invariable practice of the arrangers of that book. The same result is not secured at the end of 104 years, because in 37,960 days seven quecholli remain, it being necessary that this cycle repeat itself four times in order that the important and mysterious nocturnal characters should combine with the diurnal in a harmonious manner. And this is a new confirmation of the special importance which the Indians attributed to the great period; in it, all the chronological elements combined:
151,840 ÷ 9 = 16,871+1
151,840 ÷ 13 = 11,680
151,840 ÷ 20 = 7,592
New we may understand why the cycle of 416 years is found repeatedly stamped upon the relief. Although the movements of the sun and Venus are adjusted every 104 years, that is to say, the planet finds itself then in the same relative position to the principal star (for example, at the beginning of its heliacal as the morning or in the first day of its apparition as evening star); on the other hand, the calendars of the one and the other celestial body are not rigorously equal, just as also they are equal each eight years; it being necessary that 416 (260 Venus) years shall pass for initiating themselves with Cipactli on the same day and with the numeral 1, the two bodies occupying the same relative position as they had before in the firmament. This is the reason why the sign Cipactli appears in the heel strap of the so-called piernas colosales (“colossal legs") of Tula, two pairs of which monoliths present eight knots or tyings, that is to say, precisely 416 years, since each tying has the value 52. The heel strap symbolizes the support, the basis of the entire cyclical edifice, the initial character of which is Cipactli at the same time the “lords of the night” close a complete round, and the tonalámatl finds itself exactly contained (584 times) in the period.
151,840 days =260 x 584
Admirable combination of observations, which prove no less patience and perspicacity than knowledge and genius in the people who made the basis of their chronology from such phenomenon. A pictograph of Quich’e or Maya origin confirms the preceding, proving incidentally also the identity of the conceptions regarding the calendar between the Nahuas and the peoples of Chiapas and Yucatan. We refer to the famous "page of the Bacabs," second page in the Codex Cortesianus, published by M. León de Rosny. This painting indicates in essence the same great period; but it is expressed in Venus years. Within a peripheral zone which contains a total of 260 dots, there is noted a central square, in the sides of which, distributed in four groups, appear the twenty day characters of the month. These symbols do not present the normal order of their series: they alternate in a form apparently irregular, but which is in résumé the same as the initials of the Venus year, supposing that the twenty characters are applied to the measure of the movement of the planet, or be it that they run by successive periods of 584 days.
Here is the order which they manifest:
| Imix (the Cipactli of | Ik | Akbal | Kan | |
the Maya) | ||||
| Chichan | Oc | Mamik | Lamat | |
| Muluc | Ix | Chuen | Caban | |
| Ben | Ezanab | Men | Ahau | |
| Eb | Cimi | Cauac | Cib |
Replaced by the corresponding characters of the Nahua calendar, with insignificant variations, we shall have the four groups of the Venus calendar that appear on the pages already mentioned of the Borgian and Vatican B codices, and an the initial page of the Fejervary-Mayer. The conclusion is clear: Mayes and Mexicans computed simultaneously, by means of the tonalámatl, the movements of the sun and Venus, forming with this combination their chronological system: from which were born the cycles of 416 years.
o) Immediately connected with the pentagons, 14 wheels or circles are found. We do not attempt to decipher them, except to say that they designate the complete number of periods of 416 years which have passed from the creation of the world (in the native traditions) until the time of the construction of the monument; this would strengthen the idea that the Aztecs made it. Being 14 the cycles, they give the year 5804 of the Indian chronology, and in the year 1479 of our era the subjects of Axayácatl were in that of 5875. They were scarcely beginning the fifteenth period; they could not then mark it upon the relief. The conjecture is somewhat arbitrary, though not absurd. There are eight other wheels, a little smaller, with respect to which we find ourselves equally in ignorance.
p) We arrive at the famous serpents, the two serpents which border the relief. They have been described many times; but as their precise significance was unknown, the descriptions have been confined within the generality and vagueness suited to the uncertain and involve crass errors.
In a general way (and this is certain though vague) it has been said that they allude to time. The serpent was in fact, among the aborigines of Mexico as among the Egyptians, the symbol of time, most beautiful symbol in truth. They have been called the creative dualism, Cipactli and Oxomoco (the inventors of the calendar), xiuhcóatl or the diurnal celestial arch, the pendent of the zodiac, etc., etc. The scales of the bodies have been considered as conventionalizations of fire (not erroneously; but there is something more concrete in them), the specialty, the strange signs of the back of the figures, which have given rise to many extravagances, being taken for plumes, for flames, for a rain of fire, and so on at fancy.
As to the human heads inclosed in the throats of the serpents, the mode of interpretation has been most varied. While Dr. Valentini attributed them to the reformer of the chronology (Votan according to some authors), Don Alfredo Chavero affirms that they are Ometecuhtli, that is to say, that they relate to fire as creator or dios dos (two-god). This conception of duality has greatly preoccupied the archaeologists—now in a general and vague form calling the figures creative duality, and even double duality, or the tetranary concept (Mrs. Nuttall); or seeing in them the inventors of the calendar; now nocturnal deities (Peñafiel); now the earth and fire; now in other ways. Abadiano declared that they were the sun and the moon. Chavero, man of undoubted genius, arrived at the suggestion that they were Tonatiuh and Quetzalcóatl; although he did not give precision to the conception, or express the reasons or the combination, and thus remained in generalities and indetermination which say little. There have not been lacking those who in these heads have seen Huitzilopochtli himself.
Nothing of all this is encountered in these figures. They are the deities who preside over the chronological periods of 104 and 416 years, It is the same idea as that of the Gladiatorial Stone, of the “page of the Bacabs,” of the famous cross of the Codex Fejervary. The attributes of the heads permit clearly identifying them. One of the faces has the solar glyph on the forehead, the double cane or bunch of herbs, the nose turquoise placed transversely, the distinctive ear ornament (nacochtli); it is the star of day. The other face has a net and the yacaxiuitl of a form not well seen, but which differs from the xiuhtecuhtli. Having placed net and ear ornaments to both faces is the only defect in Iriarte’s admirable lithograph; in reality, only the face to the right of the relief has the netting, lacking on the other hand the ear ornament. The other engravers (Engberg, etc.) saw these details with exactness.
The deity in question, face to face with one that represents Tonatiuh, is also met with in the stone called the Gladiatorial Stone. His headdress there presents a peculiar form, identical even to the position of the face, with the great figures of pages 43, 44, 45, and 46 of Codex Vaticano B; he has in his hand the plumed serpent of Quetzalcóatl and carries at the shoulder the sign miquiztli, because the planet Venus is considered of unfavorable augury. They are then two perfectly differentiated deities, whose combination forms the cycles of 104 and 416 years (65 and 260 Venus years); they are Venus and the sun.
In the edifice of Xochicalco only the figures which the first (Venus) give, are directly read by means of the Cipactli (13 X 5=65); the solar cycles are understood only by equivalence and with dates. Papantla alludes directly to Venus years (65) and by equivalence to solar. Cholula was consecrated to Quetzalcóatl. The “page of the Bacabs" and those of the Fejervary and Borgian Codices directly express 260 Venus years and symbolically the corresponding solar period. Only the relief of the museum, perfect conception, shows the grand circle engendered by the two stars which unite in order to produce it.
k) The serpents as time express indefinite duration; that which concretely denotes a huehuetiliztli is in the encounter of the faces, the union of the tongues. (Also the figure of the Cipactli appears in a certain mode to denote it, as we shall see later on.) But as the perfect correlation of the calendars came to be effected only each 416 years, it was necessary to state this number in some way in the bodies of the serpents, thus determining their chronological sense. No one until now has read this period there. Nevertheless, it cannot be more clearly indicated; it is in fact the most apparent reading of the monument, proving by itself alone the rest of the interpretation. The number is encountered in those groups of four little bars, distributed in the bodies of the serpents. Each group says ácatl, técpatl, calli, tochtli, reading which has escaped the interpreters. They are the classic names of the chronological series: therefore they appear in the serpent of time.
Ah well, the total number of the bars attains exactly to 416, a fact which could not be a mere coincidence. There are 52 groups in each serpent, distributed as follows:
Groups of four little bars:
| 4 joined to the face enclosed in the throat of the serpent. Most of the | ||
| engravings and drawings show errors here: the lithograph published | ||
| in the second volume of the Anales del Museo is correct; also that | ||
| of Iriarte, which is the best we know. | ||
| 3 in each one of the 11 scales that follow, up to the tyings. In all there are | ||
| 33 groups. | ||
| 3 in the scale following the tyings. (Here Abadiano and Pedro Gonzales | ||
| arbitrarily place other groups in the outer border of the scale, Gama, | ||
| Iriarte, and Engberg are correct.) | ||
| 5 in the terminal triangles of the tails. (From Gama on, all the lithographs | ||
| seem correct in this.) | ||
| 3 in the border of the relief above the triangles. (Gama overlooks these: | ||
| the other engravers place them.) | ||
| 4 in the bands which spring from the tails. (All have them.) | ||
In total, there are 52 groups of little bars in each serpent; summed, they give 416 years, most eloquent and irrefutable confirmation of our interpretation. The first beginning with the character Ce técpatl controlling, as the copilli shows, will conclude on the day 13-ácatl.
The stone presents a curious anomaly; in the mandible of the solar serpent there are four groups of little bars; but in that of Quetzalcóatl, a profane hand has attempted to place a fifth group, which has made the reproducers of the relief commit errors. Gama did not see these little bars of the heads and omits them in his drawing, otherwise sufficiently correct. Who could be the author of such an offense? Someone who had access to the monolith for having it modeled or some other circumstance; but as he lacked the skill of the natives, he made the group visibly imperfect, the bars result much more narrow, and they do not show the clear relief which without exception the others show. What was the object of the offense? To combine some of those arbitrary periods—Egyptian, Persian, Chaldean, or Hebrew—which they had desired to read on the Toltec relief. Always the archaeological discord of affinities with the Old World damaging the knowledge of autochthonous things! j) The archaeologist Hermann Beyer interprets the figures stamped on the smiles of the serpents as conventionalizations of fire; we find the supposition very probable. But each scale represents at the same time the renovation of a period of time (idea also proposed by Dr. Valentlni); and that period can be nothing but that figured by the fire which they enclose: 52 solar years. As the scales are 24, the combination expresses 1,248 years, which added to the 416 of the little bars sum the 1,664 of which the entire age had to be composed. The number possesses another peculiarity—1,664 solar years equal 1,040 Venus years, a figure which was also considered sacred. On the other hand, if we sum 416 (taking them from the little bars) and 624, number obtained from the scales affected by the half-circle the same number, 1,040, will be obtained, this time referring to solar years. No one is ignorant of the extreme importance which the ancient Indians of Yucatan and the Plateau ascribed to their numerical combinations, which has given basis for tracing affinities between the authors of these sculptures and the old Pythagorean School (little probable in our opinion, though not impossible).
We repeat that the immediate, natural, and simple reading of the stone is that which corresponds to the data of the Toltec tradition: Three ages of the world have passed, and we find ourselves in the fourth, begun with Ce técpatl, and which will end with the year 13-ácatl. In this sense, the relief is neither more nor less than the expression of the historic sun or present epoch of its constructors, and it is in accord with the grand fresco of Teotihuacan, in which two high priests celebrate the renovation of a new epoch, symbolized by a great sun with four knots—416 years.
With respect to Aztec dates, it is possible to encounter them: but their reading is less obvious, though not strained. To admit it depends upon the inductive value which may be assigned to certain circumstances, such as the monolith having been found in a Mexican city, the fact that the year 1479 was 13-ácatl, the relationship of the Toltecs and the Tenochas, the narrative of Durán, and the mathematical adjustment of the numbers 624 and 156 with the capital events of the history of the people of Motecuhzoma, accepting the year 700 as a point of departure.
We may add that Abadiano reads the number 1,664 in the border of the commemorative stone known as that of Tizoc (and in fact, it is found there), a monolith which he supposes closely related to that of the Calendar. But, apart from the fact that he claims to find in the relief an infinity of cyclical and chronological periods proceeding from the Bible (the date of the Deluge, that of the confusion of tongues, etc., etc.), and others like the Sothic period of the Egyptians, a totally inadmissible hypothesis, he connects the date 13-ácatl of the rectangle with 1352 of our era, date in his opinion of the foundation of Mexico; the statement is doubly false, for neither was Tenochtitlan founded in that year, nor was that year 13-cane in the native chronology, but 3-técpatl, as the tables of Veytia prove, We saw before that 1323 was the true 13-ácatl, and already it is known that the Codex Fuenleal refers the foundation of the Mexican metropolis to that time. Although his knowledge of archaeology was no great thing, it should be said that in his work Anahuac Tyler suggested that the date of the rectangle mentioned referred to this same year 1323.
Let us pass to another point. It has been claimed that the divisions of the body of the xiuhcóatl correspond to the constellations of the native zodiac, idea of the archaeologist, Hermann Beyer. Without opposing so fertile and strong a thesis, we will make some concrete observations. As well in the cipactli of Xochicalco as on page 72 of the Borgian Codex, the I3 divisions manifestly indicate 65 Venus years: the chronographic characters in the codex and the accompanying dates prove it without any sort of doubt. In Xochicalco each front of the edifice has tyings for the value of 416 years, corresponding to the two sculptured cipactli, and two more suggested by means of glyphs adjacent to the body of the monsters. These free symbols are 26 in each front; it may be seen with clearness in the magnificent plates of Peñafiel's book (Monumentos de arte mexicano antiguo) and in Castañeda's drawing, reproduced by Kingsborough. Summed to the 26 directly inclosed in the bodies, we encounter 52 glyphs of 8 solar or 5 Venus years each. Each front or side of the edifice then expresses the number of 416 solar or 260 Venus years, value expressly confirmed in the 8 respective signs of tyings. In the codex the sign of tying effected by two numerals accompanies the serpents. According to this, 104 years or 416 in the four serpents is the matter. If in the museum relief, the proposition had been to represent the constellations, they would not have been upon the serpents, but on the quadrangular base of the monument, the preserved part of which shows still traces of some; this thesis appears to us more probable than that of Mr. Beyer.
I) With respect to the knots or tyings of the relief, they might signify the same 416 years figured by little bars, since there are eight. The so-called "Colossal Legs" of Tula are nothing else but the symbolism of this grand cycle, with the suggestive coincidence that there are two pairs of different size, each pair with eight knots (two for a leg), or be it the expression of 416 years. The Cipactli which they have on the heel strap confirms our interpretation, since the said character is the initial in the three computations: Venus calendar, solar calendar and tonalámatl. In the magnificent monument of Cuauhtemotzin, the architect (Señor Francisco M. Jiménez), probably without intention, reproduces the great sacred period, since pairs of columns with eight knots support the statue.
But what is currently admitted with respect to the knots or tyings of the serpents of the relief, is that they are of the value of thirteen years, indicating a xiuhtlalpilli of 52 years in each serpent and between the two the 104 years read in the meeting of the heads. As the period of 416 years is already expressed by the little bars, we do not find it inconvenient to accept this interpretation, which offers advantages of which we shall speak later. They are then the four tlalpilli of 13 years, which make up the period at the end of which the ceremony of the new fire took place; perhaps this is why they are seen united, while when the knots represent a complete cycle, each appears as separated from the others.
The dots of the serpents have been counted by Senor Chavero, who forms the year with them; we make a double reading encountering as a result of the first the tonalámatl, and of the second 366 days.
p) We have not spoken of the seven stars which crown the plumes of the heads The line that traverses them midway clearly indicates that they are stars. It has been said that they represent the Pleiades, mentioned by Sahagún in his description of the xiuhmolpia (festival of the renovation of the fire), and we have no reason for denying it. The meeting of the tongues representing a great cycle in which two xiuhmalpia fit, it is explained why these stars appear repeated, that is to say, why two groups of seven are counted in the plumages; each xiuhmalpia supposes the culmination of the constellation, signal indicated for the ceremony.
Let us state in this connection an hypothesis which does not basally alter the preceding. If the Mexican year began in the winter solstice, between December 21 and 26 as there are various reasons to believe, the constellation which then culminated at midnight is Orion and not the Pleiades. Orion shows clearly the form of a great butterfly, in which we ourselves recognize the beautiful Itzpapálotl (butterfly of obsidian knives, or of sparks) of the Indians. The Aztecs, not seeing in the said constellation the figure of a warrior, but that of a gigantic butterfly of brilliant sparkling (a more beautiful conception), must have considered it formed of seven principal stars, three of the belt and four of the great parallelogram, whose corners correspond to the eyes of the butterfly‘s wings. This being so, we can already explain the figures of the butterfly which appears on the edge of the relief: they mark a succession of xiuhmolpias. The same sign is seen, among celestial signs, in the pages of the tonalámatl; and here we recall that in the Mixtec codex from Santa Maria Yolotepec there is a butterfly placed upon a throne. It is to be noticed also that this figure is the motif par excellence of many worked stones in the museum and of stones, slabs, Columns, and figures of great size.
It seems more natural that a primitive people should take into account, at the solemn moment of making the new fire, the movements of a great constellation like this butterfly than of the little group of the Pleiades. We repeat that it is reasonable to see in Orion the symbolical Itzpapálotl, so many times mentioned in the codices; we believe that it is this which is represented by the stars of the plumes. It will be noticed that there are fourteen: this is natural, because in the huehuetiliztli the constellation culminated twice, marking the beginning of a cycle.
j) Let us see the figures of the inner border of the serpents. They have been called Cipactli, phonetics of water, plumes, half-plumes, clouds, flames, rain of fire, and various other things. We believe it probable that they are conventionalizations of fire. But the groups of four stout stars in which they terminate, by their unusually regular form, their position, and their arrangement, are clearly shown to be numeral signs. In agreement with the general meaning of the relief, we can do no less than to assign to them the value of 416 years, or what is the same, each flame symbolizes the huehuetéotl of the center with four numerals. The supposition is not at all forced; a modern artist, before a similar problem, would not proceed very differently. On the other hand, the thesis of Senor Abadiano is inacceptable, since he claims to find in the combination of the flames the years anterior to the Christian Era, in which the family of Israel penetrated the Promised Land. The relief cannot refer to that event.
But it is evident, from the position of the glyphs, separating almost from the serpent of time, that they refer to past epochs, in contradistinction to the present, which is displayed in the body of the serpents, allegory as simple as beautiful. Therefore, the serpents have life, open their throats, and have upon themselves indications of time past and data of that which ought to follow.
Our reading of the flames offers this surprising result: it indicates the date 4992, date mentioned in Ixtlilxóchitl as the end of the third age of the world. By error, in the edition made by Chavero, the date 4996 appears; but as the Texcocan chronicler himself adds that between this date and that of 5097 or Ce técpatl, with which the Toltecs began their era, there was an interval of 104 years, it is evident that the year is 4992. This is that which the flames of the relief indicate; the value which we have attributed to them is thus confirmed. Adding the number of 104 years, of the meeting of the heads, we arrive exactly at the 5096 of the world in the chronology of the Indians, which was a 13-ácatl year.
This last date being inscribed in the frame which the two serpents indicate with the tips of their tails, it appears to us that the stone says what is here read: that the number of the year figured in the body of the symbolical beings is 5,096. In other words, that the date in question was 13-ácatl.
Moreover, our reading shows what device was employed by the Indians to escape the defect of their system, which causes the dates of each 52 years to become confounded with each other: to repeat them in different modes, when they were important. Thus every reason for equivocation ceases.
n) Many authors have seen in the glyphs of the projection of the monolith the Milky Way or the symbol of the firmament. They appear in analogous fashion in other monuments, such as the stone called the stone of Tizoc and a multitude of cuauhxicalli. They are técpatl which face each other and figures in which we see the constellation Itzpapálotl. There are in the museum many stones where the butterfly occupies the principal place in a large sculptured surface.
The said signs in the relief counted, and attributing to them the value which, in consonance with the rest of the interpretation, ought to correspond to them, the date 4992 before read is repeated. There are thirty-two butterflies and thirty-two groups of técpatl, that is to say 64 elements of the last class. The fact that these face each other might strengthen the thesis that the monument expresses Toltec conceptions. We know that that people began their chronological counts by técpatl. Ah well, if a xipoualli (cycle of 52 years) began with the day Ce técpatl in a year of the same name, the first day of the following cycle also would be técpatl, which may make clear to us the position mentioned. A value of 52 years being assigned then to each group of these symbols, we obtain the number 1,664, that is to say, 3,328 in all. The butterflies complete the year 4992 already read on the face of the monument. If this is but a coincidence, there could not be one more extraordinary.
Why have not the three ages been represented by the same glyph? One hypothesis occurs to us: Orion or the Pleiades were not selected to mark the new fires until the third age; before that, either they had properly no history and the counting of the earlier epochs was a simply theoretical concept, or they did not attend to the astronomical phenomenon for dividing the cycles.
We may add that Señor Abadiano sees flowers in the figures which we take as Itzpapálotl; in his conception they signify the last of the day signs of the month, which was xóchitl. He gives no attention to the signs of stars (circles with a line across the middle) which make up the butterflies in question. The little stars alternate with técpatl or flint knives, symbol expressive of luminous gleams, sparks, flashings: the glyph unquestionably treats of a constellation.
We have analyzed and discussed the glyphs of the relief, avoiding arbitrary assumptions so far as possible. The majority of our interpretations are supported in important monuments, and among themselves they are found in harmony on the stone, the explanation of which results congruent, complete, and unitary. It could not be otherwise: a monument of such magnitude necessarily responds to a clear and logical thought.
As Beyer has said, many of the principal theories offered do not stand scientific criticism. The central face and the four quadrangles which inclose the symbols of the ages have been satisfactorily explained; there are hypotheses, susceptible of verification, concerning the dates inscribed near to the sun’s face; the fives, the solar glyphs, the pentagons, and the dots of the body of the serpents have been counted, but only of the last does any reasonable explanation exist (Chavero hit the mark very well in the interpretation of the 104 solar glyphs); and nothing or only ambiguous, poetical, and indefinitely general conceptions have been formulated concerning the pentagons, the plumes or flames, the true meaning of the serpents, the heads inclosed in their throats, the groups of four bars, the great numerals of the center of the stone, and the glyphs of the projection of the relief. Also attention has been called to the dots on the margin of the stone; but the mode of interpreting them rested upon a false assumption.
With respect to the date of the quadrangle above; there may be no mode of determining it, as it may express at once various important dates in the past of Mexico. The sign upon the forehead of Tonatiuh, the dates Ce quiáhuitl and Chicome ozomatli[3] and a definite decision when the stone was made and who worked it remain in doubt. But that it expresses the Toltec chronology based upon the cycles of 104 and 416 years, engendered by the movement and calendars of two stars, we believe is now a conquest of science. Our explanation, harmonious in its other parts, still has two gaps in it: the five solar glyphs at the base of the arrow of the naolin and the numeral located in the same place. Perhaps these may be the five intercalations of the end of the year; their position indeed suggest it.
In résumé, the Indian century or cycle of 104 years appears:
- In the face of huehuetéotl (metaphorically);
- In the circle of the solar glyphe (directly): (104) ;
- In the heads which join each other: (52+52=104).
The xipoualli or bundle of 52 years:
- In each scale or division of the body of the serpents;
- In the tyings of the serpents, assigning to them the value of a tlapilli;
- In the butterflies and the técpatl of the projection or edge of the stone.
The cycle of 416 years appears:
- In the great numerals which surround the huehuetéotl;
- In the pentagons distributed in four groups of 13 (4x13x8=416);
- In the groups (52 in each serpent) of four little bars: (directly):
- (52x4X2=416);
- In the flames of the back of the serpents: (104x4=4I6).
By equivalence:
- In the numerals (260) distributed in fives.
The year appears in the body of the serpents; there also the tonalámatl is encountered, and at the same time it is possible to make the reading of the period 1,040 in its glyphs and especially of the great era of 1,664 years, repeated four times in the rectangles of the center. We may add that the general representation of the monument is of years and not of days, a fact which for the most part has escaped archaeologists; for this reason they did not succeed in the reading.
The stone expresses directly (that is, with sign of fixed value among the Indians) the dates 4992, 5096, 5097, of the Indian chronology; also the years 624 and 780 may be read, which added to the last (itself being included) read 5720 and 5876 of the Indians, which correspond to 1323 and 1479 A.D. The former is the date of the founding of the city of Mexico; 1479 is a year in the reign of Axayácatl.
The date 4992 appears twice, that of 5096 once. Ce técpatl the year following, 5097 (700 of our era). Inferentially it is possible, and not inconsistently or by straining the truth, to encounter the date 1064 of the Christian Era, date of the exodus from Aztlan. This would suppose that the date of the tablet is not 699 A.D., but 1479; an exact cycle of 416 separates this from 1064, an observation which did not escape Dr. Valentini. We ourselves arrive at it in a different maner:
1064 (inclusive) + 416 = 1,47+9.
Ixtlilxóchitl gives the years 4992, 5096, and 5097, and Orozco y Berra admits them; Clavijero also has the date 4992: (596 of the vulgar era) setting at it the arrival of the Toltecs upon the Plateau; the Texcocan historian asserts the same. Motolinia (with a difference of six years), and the Anales de Cuauhtitlan mention the year 5097 (700 of our era); the date is assigned as that of the foundation of Tula, or, perhaps better, as that of the election of the first monarch; thus Chavero understands it. Torquemada states it, referring it to the king Totepeuh. We believe it more probably should be the beginning of an era, as Fray Toribio and Gómara declare. The illustrious writers, Count Juan Reinaldo Carli and Juan Carlos Buschmann, also name it, having encountered it in their investigations.
The canon Ordoñez de Aguiar gives approximately the year 3432 of the natives (964 B.C. ) alluding to the Quich’es. Chavero admits it with reference to the, Vixtoti. The Anales mention it in connection with the Ulmecas, from which we infer affinities between these peoples.
Tezozomoc, Chimalpahin, Veytia, and Gama mention the year 1064 of our chronology as the date of the of the wanderings of the Aztecs; and it is inferred from the Tira del Museo, codex which places the exodus of the Aztecs from Aztlan 183 years before the first kindled in Chapultepec, which event took plave in 1247 according to the study of Don Alfredo Chavero. Clavijero and Humboldt thought the same.
The year 1323, named in the Codex Fuenleal or Icazbalceta, is that of the foundation of Tenochtitlan, when the Indians began to construct substantial houses, an event somewhat subsequent to their finding the cactus (nochtli) as is inferred from the comparison of the data of the Anales de Cuauhtitlan and of the Codex Aubin. The said year 1323 corresponding to 5720 of the aborigines may be found on the monolith.
Finally, the year 1479 of our era is the one mentioned by the friar Diego Durán and may be referred to the 13-ácatl of the tablet. Nevertheless, this native date fits equally to the dates 1323 and 699 A.D. Perhaps the triple anniversary, the triple 13-ácatl, gave origin to the construction of the relief, admitting the latest of the dates (1479); in no case, however, was it the beginning of the historic or fifth sun, as Seler, Joyce, and Spinden claim, because the new era, for the Toltecs as for the Mexicans, who afterward adopted the tochtli, began with Ce técpatl, sign inscribed near the face of the sun, where such a meaning truly fitted it. We will say again: either the subjects of Motecuhzoma were a family from the Toltec trunk, or the great stone of the museum is a monument of the race of Quetzalcóatl and Huemántzin.
Our interpretation is supported upon the authorities quoted; at the same time they received irrefrangible weight which the stone, from today even more than ever, the first chapter of the history of Mexico, gives them.
- ↑ The author uses the word acompañado: it might be translated "companion," "guardian”; it is usually given in English as “lord of the night"—there being nine "lords of the night,” acompañados or quecholli.
- ↑ Although the same savant ventures the hypothesis that this page expresses some greet period of time. And Don José Fernando Ramírez affirms literally, studying the Borgian codex, that "the Mexicans had a cyclical period much larger and more perfect that Gama concedes to them, and all the other writers who have followed in his steps" (the period of 104 years).—Letter to Andrade, July, 1850
- ↑ I believe that these dates express a correction: that is to say, the actual difference of time which is produced at the end of 146 years, between the respective positions of the sun and Venus. If this is so, these dates constitute, pre-eminently the astronomical touchstone of this admirable monument.