Photo and copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

 WONDERFUL WITNESS TO AZTEC ENLIGHTENMENT : CALENDAR STONE DISCOVERED IN 

 I79O AND NOW IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM, MEXICO CITY 



This stone is of basaltic porphyry, 22 feet in diameter and 3 feet thick, and weighing 

 about 24 tons. It was first found in the subsoil of the present cathedral square of Mexico 

 City about the middle of the seventeenth century, but Archbishop Montufar, fearful that it 

 woulo 1 influence the Indians to revert to idol worship, caused it to be reburied. The central 

 figure of the carving represents the sun. Within the first ring are the names of the Aztec 

 years; within the second ring the Aztec days of the month. Prescott says that the accuracy 

 with which they adjusted their festivals to the movements of the stars and fixed the length 

 of the tropical year was with a precision unknown to any of the great philosophers of 

 antiquity. 



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