THE INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER. 



AUGUST, 1865 



THE MEXICAN ZODIAC. 



BY WILLIAM BOLLAERT, E.R.G.S., 



Corresponding Member of the University of Chile, etc. 



(With, a Tinted Plate.) 



In the year 1790 a large stone Zodiac was discovered in the 

 great square of Mexico, buried underground, amongst other 

 ruins occasioned by the devastations of the Spanish con- 

 querors. Grama, the Mexican astronomer, who has written on 

 the subject, Humboldt, and several others, have published 

 drawings of this remarkable relic, but none of them sufficiently 

 complete in their details to serve the purposes of a critical 

 and philosophical inquirer. A mere inspection of our plate 

 will show that an artist would find the delineation of such an 

 object an extremely laborious and difficult task, and without 

 the aid of photography, a reliable copy would, in all proba- 

 bility, not have been obtained. The plate engraved to illus- 

 trate this paper is a reduced fac simile of a photograph about 

 twelve inches in diameter, and it will be found to exhibit with 

 distinctness the various symbolical objects which the original 

 sculpture contains. 



This Zodiac was carved at Tenantitlan out of a mass of 

 finely porous basalt — a rock very common in the country — and 

 was taken to the city of Mexico. On reaching the quarter of 

 Xoloc, it broke from its bearings, and was precipitated into 

 the lake, when the High Priest and many others were 

 drowned. Being rescued from the water, it was transported 

 to the temple of Huitzilopochtli, and its inauguration celebrated 

 by awful sacrifices of prisoners captured in war. These san- 

 guinary scenes took place in 1512, a few years before the 

 arrival of Cortez and his companions. 



The outer circle of the Zodiac is eleven feet eight inches in 



VOL. VIII. — NO. I. B 



