50 I'lU'-jiisroiac mas 



Thv Aztecs foundod tlicir (•ai)ital cit}', called Teiiochtittan (Mexico 



. . ('ity), in the year 1.^25, and had a short but brilliant 



iiistory. Before the arri\'al of ('ortez. in 1519, they had 



reduced most of the provinces of C.'entral Mexic(j. The sacrificial stone, 



or Stone of Tizoc. is a record of some of their i)rincii)al conquests made 



hefoi-e 1 hS7. The Calendar Stone is a ^'•rai)hic representation of 



the four ))rehist()ric creations and destructions of the world as 



well as symbol of the sun and a record of the divisions of the year. 



The statue of Coatlicue, the mother of the two princi])al 



Aztec gods, is a curious figure, made up of serpents. All 



three sculptures were originally in the (Jreat Tem])le enclosure and are 



now in the Mexican National Museum. 



The funeral urns of this region are highly conventionalized figures. 

 A cruciform tomb at (Juiaroo, near the ruins of Mitla. is shown by a 

 model at this end of the room. 



SOUTHWEST PAVILION 



Prehistoric Man of North America 



Continuing west we pass into the Southwest Pavilion likewi.se given 

 over to archieology, in this instance that of North America. Here are 

 examples of ancient pottery, arrow-heads, stone axes and other imple- 

 ments of stone and bone, mostly from burial mounds. The most 

 important of these are the rude implements and fragments of human 

 bones from the Trenton gravels, as these are the oldest indubitable 

 evidences of man on this continent. Notice that the arrangement from 

 left to right around the hall is by states. Read the label at the entrance 

 of this hall. For more complete description read case labels and various 

 books of information on the exhibits in this room. 



In the tower room adjoining are the .stone implements and rude 

 carvings of the primitive men who inhabited the caves of Southern 

 Europe at a tim(> when England was a peninsula, the north of Europe 

 buried deep under the ice of a glacial ejwch and the reindeer and the 

 hairy mannnoth roamed through Southern France. 



Around tlu^ room are copies of paintings — for primitive man was 

 an artist as well as a hunter — on the walls of the caves of Altamira. 

 Font de (iaum(\ and others, showing the Bison, wrongly called Aurochs. 

 the mammoth and the horse of that day, the contemj^oraries of the 

 Neandcrthol man. 



At the entrance is a time clock from which it appears that if the age 

 of the world be taken as representing 60,000,000 years, the historic 

 period with which we are ac(iuainted has lasted half a second. 



