Yalentini.] t)u4: 



five Mexican supplementary days, called the nemotemi (5 -{- 360 days). 

 Hence, the premises of this theory being incorrect, the conclusion must 

 be incorrect also. 



The theory of the author is the following : 



The Mexican Calendar Stone is avotive monument dedicated to the Sun God 

 in the year XIII Acetl. As in the series of the fifty-two years, which form 

 a Mexican cycle, the year of the name XIII Acetl was the last one, the 

 people looked at it with fright. For they believed that the Sun God, at the 

 lapse of each cycle would destroy the world, and, therefore, the happy 

 entrance of a new cycle was considered by the people to be a special in- 

 dication of his mercy. The motives of the dedication thus explained, the 

 author transcribes the year Xtll Acetl, which is sculptured in a tablet at 

 the top of the stone, into that of 1479 of'our era, and gives the reasons for 

 doing so. He then proceeds to ascertain the person to whom the stone 

 was dedicated, and from the central position of an image, from its orna- 

 ments, and from a hiei'oglyphic sculptured on its frontlet, ha comes to the 

 conclusion that this image is that of the sun god, Atoniatuh. 



These preliminai'y questions settled, the author passes to the minute 

 description and final definition of all those hieroglyphics which in suc- 

 cessive and c 5ncentric zones surround the image of Atoniatuh. He says, 

 as the intention was to glorify the Sun God, the great giver of time, the 

 artist chose to sculpture in the spaces of the concentric zones all those 

 symbols by which the Mexicans used to represent time and its division. 

 In the immediate vicinity of the image the artist placed the zone of the 

 Aeons, in the form of four tablets upon which the four destructions of the 

 world, the most ancient deeds of the Sun God, are found to be sculptured. 

 Next comes the zone of the twenty days, which constitute a Mexican month. 

 Each of these twenty days has its special image. Then comes the zone of the 

 two hundred and sixty Lunar days, divided into weeks, each of these being 

 subdivided into five days ; and around this zone lies that of the one hun- 

 dred Solar days ; for, accoi-ding to their j)eculiar way of computing time 

 the circle of the ancient Mexican year was split into those portions. The 

 five days icanting to make their year a more correct one will be seen to be 

 intercalated within the space between the tablets of the two last destruc- 

 tions of the world. The sixteen hoitrs of the Mexican day are represented 

 by gnomons, which at proportionate distances intersect the zones. The 

 last zone, girdling the whole monument is occupied by the symbols for 

 the cycle. Thus, every kind of symbols representing division of time will 

 be found to ba sculptured on the monument and brought into symmetri- 

 cal relation to the image of him whom they considered to be the primeval 

 origin of all time. 



Special attention has been paid by the author to the Zone of the Cycles, 

 which he calls the Chronological Zone. It is divided into twenty-four 

 tablets. Each of these is like the other and contains the picture which 

 was employed for designating the lapse of a cycle of fifty-two years. It 



