Page:Stone of the Sun.djvu/76

 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,