Along the base of the stone, which is in thickness some five feet, at the feet of the giant, there are a series of figures inscribed which are now almost obliterated; at least the photographs sent the Society give no clear idea of them, and the cuts of Dupaix are plainly for the most part fanciful. Their presence there, however, proves that the block was not intended to have been set up on edge, or inserted vertically into a wall, as either of these arrangements would have obscured these hieroglyphs.[[251]]
I now approach the decipherment of the inscriptions. Any one versed in the signs of the Mexican calendar will at once perceive that it contains the date of a certain year and day. On the left of the giant is seen a rabbit surrounded with ten circular depressions. These depressions are the well-known Aztec marks for numerals, and the rabbit represents one of the four astronomic signs by which they adjusted their chronologic cycle of fifty-two years. The three others were a house, a reed, and a flint. Each one of these recurred thirteen times in their cycle, making, as I have said, a term of fifty-two years in all. A year was designated by one of the four names with its appropriate number; as “3 house,” “12 flint,” “4 reed,” etc., the sequence being regularly preserved.
The days were arranged in zones or weeks of twenty, the different series being numbered, and also named from a sequence of eighteen astronomical signs called “wind,” “lizard,” “snake,” “deer,” etc. The five days lacking to complete the 365 were intercalated. A second or ritual system had thirteen weeks of twenty days each; but as thirteen times twenty makes only two hundred and sixty, in this computation there remained 105 days to be named and numbered. Their device to accomplish this was simple: they merely recommenced the numbering and naming of the weeks for this remainder, adding a third series of appellations drawn from a list of nine signs, called “rulers of the night.” At the close of the solar year they recommenced as at the beginning of the previous year.[[252]]
With these facts in our mind, we can approach our task with confidence. The stone bears a carefully dated record, with the year and day clearly set forth. The year is represented to the left of the figure, and is that numbered “ten” under the sign of the rabbit, in Nahuatl, xihuitl matlacth tochtli; the day of the year is numbered “one” under the sign of the fish, ce cipactli.
These precise dates recurred once, and only once, every fifty-two years; and had recurred only once between the year of our era 1450 and the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1519–20. We may begin our investigations with that one epoch, as from other circumstances, such as local tradition[[253]] and the character of the work, it is not likely that the inscription was previous to the middle of the fifteenth century. Within the period named, the year “10 rabbit” of the Aztec calendar corresponded with the year 1502 of the Gregorian calendar. It is more difficult to fix the day, as the mathematical problems relating to the Aztec diurnal reckonings are extremely complicated, and have not yet been satisfactorily worked out; but it is, I think, safe to say, that according to both the most probable computations the day “one fish”—ce cipactli—occurred in the first month of the year 1502, which month coincided in whole or in part with our February.
Such is the date on the inscription. Now, what is intimated to have occurred on that date? The clue to this is furnished by the figure of the giant.
On looking at it closely we perceive that it represents an ogre of horrid mien with a death-head grin and formidable teeth, his hair wild and long, the locks falling down upon the neck; and suspended on the breast as an ornament is the bone of a human lower jaw with its incisor teeth. The left leg is thrown forward as in the act of walking, and the arms are uplifted, the hands open, and the fingers extended, as at the moment of seizing the prey or the victim. The lines about the umbilicus represent the knot of the girdle which supported the maxtli or breech-cloth.
Fig. 1. The Stone of the Giants.
There is no doubt as to which personage of the Aztec pantheon this fear-inspiring figure represents; it is Tzontemoc Mictlantecutli, “the Lord of the Realm of the Dead, He of the Falling Hair,” the dread god of death and the dead.[[254]] His distinctive marks are there, the death-head, the falling hair, the jaw bone, the terrible aspect, the giant size.