Fig. 99.—The Emperor Ahuitzotzin.
The figure so copied is entitled “Extract from the Vatican Codex,” which is a slight error. It is a copy from the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, Kingsborough, I, Pt. 4, p. 23, year 1502, which is here reproduced as Fig. 99. The record in the Vatican Codex, Kingsborough, II, p. 130, differs in some unimportant details. It may also be noted that in the text relating to the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, Kingsborough, VI, p. 141, the word Ahuitzotl is given as “the name of an aquatic animal famous in Mexican mythology.” The present opportunity is embraced to recognize the acumen displayed by Prof. Brinton in his interpretation of the petroglyph. He proceeds as follows:
The sign of the year (the rabbit) is shown merely by his head for brevity. The ten dots, which give its number, are beside it. Immediately beneath is a curious quadruped, with what are intended as water-drops dripping from him. The animal is the hedgehog, and the figure is to be constructed iconomatically; that is, it must be read as a rebus through the medium of the Nahuatl language. In that language water is atl, in composition a, and hedgehog is uitzotl. Combine these and you get ahuitzotl, or, with the reverential termination, ahuitzotzin. This was the name of the ruler or emperor, if you allow the word, of ancient Mexico before the accession to the throne of that Montezuma whom the Spanish conquistador, Cortes, put to death.
Returning to the page from the chronicle, we observe that the hieroglyph of Ahuitzotzin is placed immediately over a corpse swathed in its mummy cloths, as was the custom of interment with the highest classes in Mexico. This signifies that the death of Ahuitzotzin took place in that year. Adjacent to it is the figure of his successor, his name iconomatically represented by the headdress of the nobles, the tecuhtli, giving the middle syllables of “Mo-tecuh-zoma.” No doubt is left that La Piedra de los Gigantes of Escamela is a necrologic tablet commemorating the death of the Emperor Ahuitzotzin, some time in February, 1502.
Mr. Eugène Boban (a) mentions manuscript copies, dating from the beginning of the century, of various sculptured stones in Mexico. These sculpturings represent native ideographic characters, among them the teocalli, the tepetl, the sign ollin, etc.
On several of the plates which compose this collection are notes indicating the place where the monument, fragment, or ruin is found, from which the characters are copied; for example, one of them bears the note: “de la calle Rl de la villa de Cuernabaca.” Several others bear annotations which show that they have been copied in the cemetery, in the streets of that town, or in its environs.
Aside from these notes the plates are not accompanied by any information which could give a trace of the person who drew them, or the purpose for which they were intended.
The same author (b) describes a large sculptured stone of Mexico, the designs on which have been reproduced in paintings on deerskin. After giving a detailed description of the copied MS. he speaks of the stone as follows:
We deem it of interest to give some notes concerning the famous cylindrical stone, both sculptured and painted, known by the name Teocuauhxicalli (the sacred drinking vase of the eagles) on which are found the themes of all the designs which have been above described. This stone, buried at the time of the Spanish Conquest, was discovered in the first half of this century at the close of a series of excavations made in the soil of the Place d’Armes, Mexico. The director of the national museum, who was then M. Rafael Gondra, contented himself with taking the dimensions and making a hurried sketch of it. It was then reinterred, as the necessary funds were lacking to exhume it entirely and transport it to the museum.