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Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



THE ANCIENT AZTEC OR MEXICAN METHOD OF COM- 

 PUTING TIME, 



As shown by the Description, by Antonio Leon y Gama, of the Celebrated Calendar 

 Stone, found in the Grand Plaza of the City of Mexico, in 1790 — 

 Translated from the Spanish, by 



Col. James W. Abert. 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



I have always been possessed with the thought that in the Grand 

 Plaza of this city and at the gate of Santiago Tlatelolco there 

 would be found many precious monuments of Mexican antiquity, 

 because the first place included the site of the grand Temple of 

 Mexico, which was composed of seventy-eight edifices, including 

 small temples, chapels and the dwellings of priests and ministers. 

 There were kept, not only the numerous false gods, which they 

 worshiped in blind idolatry (which were of hard stone, and of 

 excessive magnitude and weight, and, for that reason, difficult to 

 carry off j, but also many instruments which they used in their arts 

 and duties ; also, historical and chronological records, which were 

 preserved,- engraved in great stones by these same priests, whose 

 charge was the care of the memorials of the deeds of their ances- 

 tors and of everything else connected with their political and re- 

 ligious government ; in the second place, Tlatelolco was the last 

 stronghold, where the Indians retreated and maintained themselves 

 until the day of the capture of their city. It seemed most prob- 

 able that there they would have brought their Penates, or less 

 weighty idols, as well as all materials they had fabricated, which 

 they regarded as most precious, and which they kept in their own 

 dwellings, as well as all the jewelry and treasures which they pos- 

 sessed, and other valuables which served to adorn their idols ; and 

 all the riches that the Spaniards lost the night they were driven out 

 of Mexico, which riches they could not afterward recover, notwith- 

 standing the great diligence and solicitude they exerted, even in 

 searching the whole lake, into which the Indians said they had 

 thrown them. It was then most probable that all of their things, 

 or at least the greater part of them, might be buried in the earth 



