Page:Stone of the Sun.djvu/34

 of the number is made in the bodies of the serpents, whose tails indicate precisely the frame of the 13-cane.

Let us see now the symbols of the projection. Until the present they have been considered either merely decorative or emblems of the Milky Way. They might metaphorically be the latter; but they have, at the same time, an exact chronological significance, an idea suggested by Abadiano, although our own judgment in this matter differs in various respects from his. There are two técpatl (flint knives) which face each other, alternating with itzpapálotl (obsidian butterflies), which in our conception is the constellation Orion: the small circles crossed by lines clearly show that an asterism is in question.

There are 32 butterflies; assigning to each the value of a xiuhmollpia (cycle or bundle of 52 years) gives us among them all 1,664, whose significance we shall seek opportunely. With respect to the knives (técpatl), they number 64, or, as they are in couples, 32 groups; attributing the same value to them, not an arbitrary hypothesis as we shall see, there is obtained the number 3,328, the double of 1,664, which is the precise product of four periods of 416. Summing this number 3,328 and the preceding 1,664 completes the important date read in the surface of the relief: the year 4492; notice that the series of elements with which we have encountered it are three in accord. One reading confirms the other. We shall undertake to harmonize them with our chronology.

A third date may be read in the monolith. Each serpent presents twelve scales, or divisions, and each one of these incloses a glyph, symbolical of fire according to the archaeologists, which is accompanied by a half-numeral, that is to say, a half-circle.

The figure resembles the glyph of the new fires, frequently represented with a double volute, as may be seen, for example, in the edifice of Xochicalco; and the supposition is so much the more probable, considering that the symbolical serpent ought to grow by equal parts or periods, and here the four tyings of the tail tell us that the serpent represents primordially a chronological value of 52 years. But the half-circles indicate that in each scale only the half-period is to be considered. There being 24 of these divisions, their summation embraces a total of 624 years (24×52÷2), which, added to the 5,096 gives us the year 5720 of native reckoning.

Soon we shall harmonize this new date with our chronology. If we add the 156 dots inscribed on the cylindrical projection or edge of the relief, near the butterflies and the flint knives, we attain the date