Page:Stone of the Sun.djvu/88

 which were in essence derived from the Toltecs. Grandiose in architecture, skilled although not perfected in painting, they surpassed in sculpturing stone and had no rival as decorators. Most beautiful their stucco decorations and works in freestone; their sculptures and reliefs in hard rock are masterpieces, unsurpassed as to beauty and workmanship in any country of the earth.

In the year 1064, the tribe of the Aztecs, also of Nahua race, undertook a pilgrimage, going out from a place the exact location of which is not yet known; it is nevertheless a fact—the codices state it—that the Aztecs began their journey in water craft.

In 1227 they arrive at Chapultepec and in 1257 kindle the new fire in that place. Their chronological system is the same as that of the Toltecs; the cycles of 52 years show it.

In 1323 they definitely found the city of Tenochtitlan; a little before, ten or twelve years, they had encountered the eagle upon the cactus. About 1479 a grand cycle of 416 years from the beginning of their pilgrimage was completed, a fact which the Aztecs celebrate with extraordinary sacrifices and festivities; perhaps then they constructed a notable commemorative monument.

Finaly, 13 years (a tlalpilli) before the chronological cycle (104 years) should end, reckoning from the creation of the world according to their ideas, the Spanish conqueror arrived, and in the year Yei calli (1521) the empire of the Mexicans was destroyed, the last of its monarchs being the hero, whom they symbolically called “The Eagle Who Falls.” The year 1521 A.D. was 5918 of the chronology of the autochthonous nation. As an original and most valuable contribution to human culture it left, as we have already said, its arts and calendar, which is based totally on astronomical observations. Arts, history, and calendar are found in synthesis in the stone of the museum.

NAME AND POSITION OF THE MONOLITH

As concerns the name of the stone, considering that it is the sum total of the chronological system of the aborigines, founded in mathematically defined cycles, none is more exact than that proposed by Don Alfredo Chavero, the “Mexican Cyclographic Stone”; but we believe that it will not be possible to displace the designation “Aztec Calendar,” imposed by the first eminent interpreter of the monument, and by which it is universally known. Strictly it is a calendar, in the elevated and broad sense, since it contains the measure of time; but we cannot absolutely assert or deny that it is Aztec work. The name 75