say, as proof that we are not dealing merely with arbitrary theories or purely speculative systems, that the numbers 37,960 and 151,840 appear in the Dresden Codex. Förstemann, its able interpreter, has read them in that admirable astronomical book.
Let us pass to the seventh zone, which forms the border of the monument, figuring two serpents which end in colossal heads of strange and elaborate decoration. This is the pre-eminently beautiful circle of the relief perhaps the most studied, concerning which there have been proposed the largest number of conflicting conjectures. Here we shall confirm the key of the interpretation of the monolith and shall see the sum and confirmation of the preceding data.
Two magnificent serpents encircle the relief and at the lower part of the stone join heads, from whose opened throats peer out human faces confronting each other. The body of the serpents is found to be ornamented through its entire length with an artistic and imaginative richness which, considered simply as decorative, would be a masterpiece; if more than decorative, these glyphs involve precise dates and astronomical symbolisms—the work becomes one of genius than which certainly the nations of antiquity have left nothing more admirable
The signs distributed over the body of the serpents are of three classes: numerals, groups of bars or strokes, and a glyph considered a conventionalized representation of fire; further, four tyings in the tails of the monsters.
All of these elements possess concrete meaning In the so-called flames, which issue from the back of the serpents, there are also groups of four thick bars. In sum the zone includes the following elements: the heads inclosed in the throats of the serpents, with characteristic headdress and attributes; the scales or body divisions of the creatures themselves; numerals made of dots and groups of four bars distributed in the bodies themselves and in the two terminal bands which go off from the tails; other glyphs situated in the inner line of the body of the serpents, which have been considered conventionalizations of fire, although without noticing that these signs bear numerals; and lastly the date indicated by the points of the tails and included within a frame, in the upper part of the monolith. This date is found figured with a cane and thirteen points (13-ácatl).
Let us commence by observing that the heads which appear in the throats are distinct beings or deities, differentiated by characters
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