MALLERY.] STONE OF THE GIANTS, MEXICO. 133 
on their surfaces, evidently the product of observation and calculation. Some of 
them have connection with those found symmetrically arranged in circles on the 
ancient Mexican calendar, exposed in this capital to general admiration. In front 
of the observer is a rabbit seated and confronted by two parallel rows of numerical 
figures; lastly two other symbols relating to the same science are seen at the back. 
Prof. Daniel G. Brinton (a), gives an account of the illustration here 
produced on Pl. xtv A, which may be thus condensed: 
The “Stone of the Giants” at Escamela near the city of Orizaba, Mexico, has 
been the subject of much discussion, Father Damaso Sotomayor sees in the inscribed 
figures a mystical allusion to the coming of Christ to the Gentiles and to the oceur- 
rences supposed in Hebrew myth to have taken place in the Garden of Eden, This 
stone was examined by Capt. Dupaix in the year 1808 and is figured in the illus- 
trations to his voluminous narrative. The figure he gives [now presented as B 
on Pl. xtv] is, however, so erroneous that it yields but a faint idea of the real char- 
acter and meaning of the drawing. It omits the ornament on the breast and also 
the lines along the right of the giant’s face, which as I shall show are distinctive 
traits. It gives him a girdle where none is delineated, and the relative size and pro- 
portions of all the three figures are quite distorted. 
The rock on which the inscription is found is roughly triangular in shape, pre- 
‘senting a nearly straight border of 30 feet on each side. It is hard and uniform in 
texture and ofa dark color. The length or height of the principal figure is 27 feet, 
and the incised lines which designate the various objects are deeply and clearly cut. 
I now approach the decipherment of the inscriptions. Any one versed in the signs 
of the Mexican calendar will at once perceive that it contains the date of a certain 
year and day. On the left of the giant is seen a rabbit surrounded with ten circular 
depressions. These depressions are the well-known Aztec marks for numerals, and 
the rabbit represents one of the four astronomic signs by which they adjusted their 
chronologic cycles of fifty-two years. The stone bears a carefully dated record, with 
year and day clearly set forth. The year is represented to the left of the figure and 
is that numbered ‘‘ten” under the sign of the rabbit; the day of the year is number 
“one” under the sign of the fish. 
These precise dates recurred once, and only once, every fifty-two years, and had 
recurred only once between the year of our era, 1450, and the Spanish conquest of 
Mexico in 1519/20. Within the period named the year ‘‘ten rabbit” of the Aztec 
calendar corresponded with the year 1502 of the Gregorian calendar. It is more dif- 
fieult to fix the day, but itis, I think, safe to say that, according to the most prob- 
able computations, the day, ‘‘one fish,” occurred in the first month of the year 1502, 
which month coincided in whole or in part with our February. 
Such is the date on the inscription. Now, what is intimated to have occurred on 
that date? The clew to this is furnished by the figure of the giant. It represents 
an ogre of horrid mien with a death’s-head grin and formidable teeth, his hai» wild 
and long, the locks falling down upon the neck. Suspended on the breast as an 
ornament is the bone of a human lower jaw, with its incisor teeth. The left leg is 
thrown forward as in the act of walking, and the arms are uplifted, the hands open, 
and the fingers extended as at the moment of seizing the prey or the victim. The 
lines about the umbilicus represent the knot of the girdle which supported the 
maxtli or breechcloth., ; 
There is no doubt as to which personage of the Aztec pantheon this fear-inspiring 
figure represents. It is Tzontemoc Mictlantecutli, ‘‘the Lord of the Realm of the 
Dead, He of the Falling Hair,” the dread god of death and the dead. His distinctive 
marks are there, the death’s-head, the falling hair, the jaw bone, the terrible aspect, 
the giant size. 
We possess several chronicles of the empire before Cortes destroyed it, written in 
the hieroglyphs which the inventive genius of the natives had devised: Taking two 
