Page:Stone of the Sun.djvu/63

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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 rec-

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