﻿Gama on Calendar Stone. 



13 



In consideration of this note, it was actually transported to the 

 Royal University, where it is now located in one of the angles of 

 the portico ; but the dimensions, weight, drawings and engraving 

 which the Superintendent offered to make, were not made, on ac- 

 count of the numerous important duties which occupied his first 

 attention, and perhaps he delayed to make them, because he had 

 received notice that I began the labors of giving its description to 

 the public. 



By legal proceedings it is evident, that on the 13th day of 

 August, 1790, a day memorable for being the same on which the 

 King of Spain took possession of the city in the year 1521 (although 

 two witnesses state ambiguously, that it was the 14th), being engaged 

 in excavating the ditch for the stonework through which the water 

 should flow, there was found, close to the little chests which are 

 called after Saint Joseph, at the distance of 5 varas north of the 

 acequia, and 37 to the west of the Royal Palace, the stone statue; 

 the head of which was buried at the depth of one vara and a third, 

 and the other extremity, or foot, at little less than one vara. On 

 the 4th of September, at midnight, it was suspended and placed in a 

 vertical position, by means of a tackle with double pulleys ; and at 

 the same hour on the night of the 25th, it was drawn away from 

 that place, and rested in front of the second door of the Royal 

 Palace, whence it was afterward transported to the Royal Uni- 

 versity. 



But a short time had passed after its being moved, when, on the 

 occasion of the repaving, on account of the sinking of the ancient 

 level of the Plaza, on the 17th of December of the same year, 1790, 

 was discovered, at only one yard's depth, and at a distance of 80 

 to the west of the same second door of of the Royal Palace, and 37 

 to the north of the "Portal of Flowers," the second stone; its pos- 

 terior surface uppermost, as is testified by official documents of the 

 1 2th of February, 1791, transmitted to the Senor Superintendent, 

 by one of the Grand Masters of N. C. D. , Joseph Damian Ortiz, 

 communicating the notice of the find. 



This second stone, which is the largest and most instructive, he. 

 begged of His Excellency Sehor Virey, for the Seniores, Doctor 

 Joseph Uribe and Doctor Don Juan Joseph Gamboa, Commission- 



