﻿Gama on Calendar Stone. 



5 



at Tlatelolco. If one should make excavations, as it was proposed 

 to do in Italy, in order to find statues and fragments, which would 

 bring back the memoirs of ancient Rome, and which was actually- 

 done in Spain at the villa of Rielves, three leagues distant from 

 Toledo, where they discovered various ancient pavements, how 

 many monuments might not we discover of the ancient Indians ?' 

 How many books and pictures which the priests had concealed, 

 and especially the Teoamoxli, in which, in their native characters, 

 they had written their origin ; the progressive moves of their nation 

 from their exit from Aztlan until they came to populate the lands 

 of Anahuac ; the rites and ceremonies of their religion ; the funda- 

 mental principles of their chronology and astronomy, etc ? And 

 what treasures might not thus be revealed? 



Thus it actually happened, for in a few days we obtained revela- 

 tions, which told us what the Indians were in the time of their 

 nationality, by means of the discovery of two precious monuments, 

 which demonstrated their culture and instruction in the sciences 

 and arts. From these it is evident how much a particular find re- 

 veals, and how it can be an original and instructive document 

 which displays a great deal of history and chronology, and also 

 the exact manner in which the Mexicans measured time, for the 

 celebration of their feasts and for their political history; for most 

 of their histories had perished in the flames, or were lost by the in- 

 ability to interpret what their picture-writing signified. What a 

 deplorable loss those men of taste have suffered, who devote them- 

 selves to the study of the antiquarian literature of these nations! 



On the occasion when the Government ordered that the Grand 

 Plaza should be paved and leveled, and they made excavations in 

 which to conduct the water through subterranean channels; and 

 while busy excavating for this object, about the end of the month 

 of August, in the year 1790, they encountered, but a short distance 

 below the surface of the earth, a statue curiously wrought out of 

 stone, of extraordinary magnitude, which represented one of the 

 idols that the Indians adored in the time of their nationality. But 

 a few months passed when they found the other stone, much larger 

 than the antecedent one, only a short distance from it, and almost 

 touching the surface of the ground, so placed that upomthe upper 



