Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/164

Rh conclude this branch of an interesting antiquarian subject, by referring all who are curious in such matters, to the very interesting volumes of the Abbé Clavigero, who, after a residence of near forty years in the provinces of New Spain, composed his history of Mexico. His life had been passed in deep study of the Indian and Spanish writers, and the results of his well-digested labors have, after near half a century, passed to our times as indisputable authority.

But after instructing you in some degree in the history of the priest-hood and the temples, it would be improper for me to leave the subject without an account of the services to which they were both devoted.

The chief of these were the sacrifices—and in illustration of them, I have placed at the commencement of this letter, a drawing of the large circular stone now in the University of Mexico, known by the name of the "Piedra de Sacrificios," or Sacrificial Stone. It is an immense mass of basalt, nine feet in diameter and three in height, and was found in 1790, below the great square of Mexico, on the site of the Teocalli, which I have just described.

When first discovered, this stone was overturned, but, upon reversing it, carvingss in bas-relief were seen on the surface, and the sides were found to be beautifully sculptured, as will be observed in the opposite plate.

In the centre of the upper surface there is a circular cavity, from which a canal, or gutter, leads to the circumference of the cylinder and partly down its side. This, together with the sculpture, has induced most writers to believe it to have been the stone on which the priests performed their sacrifices, and that the blood of the victims flowed from it by these evident conduits. Yet other authors doubt whether it was ever appropriated to this use. It is true, that in the description of the great Temple given by the old writers, it is alleged that in front of the tower, on the summit, there was a large convex stone upon which they extended the person who was to be sacrificed; but it is highly probable that so huge a mass of rock as this, could not have been borne up such intricate passages as the steps of the Teocalli, to the height of 120 feet. De Gama is of opinion that these stones were also found in the square below, in the temples, or before the altars of other deities; and, in the description of those in the temples of Huitzilopotchli and Tlaloc, Doctor Hernandez says they were "concoxes et orbiculari forma," and called "Techcatl." "Ante has" (meusulas) "aderant lapidæ orbiculari forma, quibus techcatl nomen, ubi servi, at in proæsliis capti, in horum Deorum honorem mactabantur, è quibus lapidibus in parimentum usque in infernum civi sanguinci conspiciebanteur vestigia quod etiam videbatur in casteris turribus."

With these authorities, and apparent appropriateness from the cavities already described, it is, nevertheless, the opinion of De Gama that this neither a Stone of Sacrifice, nor the Gladiatorial Stone. Such,