# The Stone of the Sun and the First Chapter of the History of Mexico/Description and First Explanations

The stone of the Museum is a circular relief, sculptured in basalt, 3.63 m. in diameter. In truth, the entire surface of the monolith is found to be occupied by glyphs, distributed in seven zones or concentric circles; there are, further, other signs in the cylindrical projection of the relief, part of an enormous rock approximately quadrangular, whereon, with consummate mastery, the cylinder was worked.
At the center and of large size, is seen the image of the sun, under the figure of the old god (huehueteotl). He has a mask, the skin wrinkled at the sides, distinctive ear ornaments, protruding tongue (expression of light), elegant necklace of seven heads (symbol of celestial bodies) and the solar glyph on the forehead, accompanied by two numerals.
On one and the other side of this face, two opened and magnificent talons present the luminary as if it were suspended in the zenith, according to the happy expression of Señor Chavero.
Inclosing the face of the sun, and occupying the following circle, shows itself in large size the sign naolin, indicative of the movement of the sun between the solstices and the equinoxes. Four rectangles,
​which contain the representation of the cosmogonic ages into which the indigenes arranged the history of the world, form this allegory. The figures sculptured in the said frames carry, all of them, four numerals; their symbolism has given rise to important studies ever since the time of Gama and especially by the learned archaeologist, Don Alfredo Chavero.
Artistically developed between the rectangular frames, with the shaft end downward and the point showing the meridian of the place, there is distinguished an arrow of elegant drawing at whose extremities above and below, to right and left, are read the dates Ce técpatl (with its attendant, Tletl) and below Ce quiáhuitl and Ome or Chicome ozomatli. Circumscribed, at the end of the arrow, and between the face and the claws of Tonatiuh, are glyphs and numerals of which we shall speak later. We may add that the very position of the arrow is sufficient proof that the monolith was placed vertically, and not horizontally.
Comprised within the same circle, to the right and the left of the rectangular frames of the naolin, are noted four great numerals. These do not relate to the said sign (which, by its very form, implicitly carries the name "four movements"), but to the face sculptured at the center of the stone. This being the old sun and being figured in a chronographic figure, a native of those times would without vacillation assign to it the value corresponding to it: it is the huehuetiliztli or century of the Indians, double and sacred cycle, which the ancient Mexicans called old duration or age; therefore the four numerals indicate four huehuetiliztli, which are 416 years. Such was the motive for not having figured Tonatiuh as in other representations, with a face radiant with life, but with the appearance of age; the stone confirms this repeatedly, as we shall see further on.
Sahagún, speaking of this chronological period and of its importance, expresses himself as follows:
The larger period of time which they counted was 104 years, and they called this count an age, and the half of it, which are 52 years, they called a bundle of years. This method of counting the years they had brought down from antiquity; it is not known when it began; but they held it for certain and as a belief that the world had to come to an end with the conclusion of one of these bundles of years, and they had a prediction and oracle that then the movement of the heavens had to cease, and they took as a sign the movement of the Pleiades on the night of this festival, which they called toxiumolpilia. ​In the central figure of the monument then it is not a question of the simple representation of the star of day; it treats rather of the chief chronological cycle of the aboriginal cultures, the true century or age of the Indians, as Sahagún tells us. The artist attempted to indicate, and in this face of an old man does perfectly indicate, a huehuetiliztli, a double xiuhtlalpilli: 104 years. The thought could not be better coneived nor better expressed.
Let us add that below the arrow there is another numeral; but it is not as large as the previous four, nor is it worked out in exactly the same way. Without doubt it should not be computed in the same fashion.
Let us consider the following circle, which is the third of the relief. Its description offers no difficulties, and its interpretation is the ABC of archaeological studies. It contains the twenty characters of the native month, symbols which—as they constitute the foundation of the calendars of the Nahua, Maya, Zapotec, Matlatzinca, and other races which vary in the designative terms, agreeing in the roots—we ought to consider as a common legacy from a civilizing population which served as a trunk to all the others. The signs begin with Cipactli and end with Xochitl. Mrs. Nuttall sees in these characters symbols of the native zodiac, and we do not consider the idea (suggested previously, more or less explicitly, by Boturini, Veytia, Fábrega, Orozco y Berra, del Paso y Troncoso and Chavero) absurd. The order is that well known from the monuments and the codices, to-wit:
| Cipactli | Miquiztli | Ozomatli | Cozcacuáuhtli |
| Ehécatl | Mázatl | Malinalli | Ollin |
| Calli | Tochtli | Acatl | Técpatl |
| Cuetzpallin | Atl | Océlotl | Quiáhuitl |
| Cóatl | Itzcuintli | Cuáuhtli | Xóchitl |
We may add that the style of the Cipactli appears here a somewhat peculiar one. Supporting themselves on this circle, and dividing the following one, display themselves four magnificent rays or pointers with curved base, which by their position indicate the principal divisions of the day: midday (Nepantla Tonatiuh), midnight (Yohual-nepantla), the hour of sunset (Tonaqui Tonatiuh), and that of dawn (Iquiza Tonatiuh). Gama established this symbolism.
Alternating with these, but less in size an with support upon the following circle, are other four rays, but with base not curved but ​straight, which express the following hours. Yet smaller and resting upon the following zone are seen eight asps between the rays described; they indicate, surely, a smaller subdivision of time. In total, the day of the aborigines was distributed into 16 hours of 90 minutes each.
The fourth zone or circle contains two hundred dots distributed in groups of five (each group in a little frame) which are commonly designated with the term of quintiduos (“quintettes”). In the asps already mentioned (six of which are entirely visible and two concealed in such a manner as induces us to assign the same elements to them) are eight quintiduos, giving a total of forty dots. We ought yet to add the ten circumscribed in the arrow of the naolin and the ten placed between the face and the claws of the Tonatiuh. These last are dots like the others; but the necessities of distribution of the relief do not permit their being arranged in an actually identical form. Altogether they sum up to two hundred and sixty numerals of equal kind, a reading already made by archaeologists.
Until now it has been assumed that the elements in question represent the tonalámatl or cecempohualli, fundamental computation of native chronology. Nevertheless, this is an error. Further than the fact that that appears inscribed in another part of the relief, the distribution of the 260 numerals in groups of five, and not of thirteen, dots demonstrates by itself alone that we are not here dealing with the sacred book composed fundamentally of thirteens. The dots in question denote years, not days as has been supposed; and if they appear distributed in fives it is because they allued to years of the planet Venus, that is to say, the synodical movements of that planet, five of which form a cycle in the calendar of the aborigines for reasons which we shall explain later.
The dots of the fourth circle, joined with the other elements of the same kind which may be read in the relief, represent then a period of 260 Venus years. Taking the synodical revolution of the planet as very close to 584 days, the total amounts to 151,840 days, or 416 solar years, great cycle of the aboriginal chronology, repeatedly figured in the monolith, as we shall see in the sequel. It is inferred that the Indians carried on simultaneously two calendars, that of the star of day and that of Venus, and by their combination they computed the course of time; in this method, with puerly astronomical elements, they formed their system of chronology.
Interrupted in its turn by the great and small rays, the fifth circle is formed of eight zones or glyphs which archaeologists have agreed in ​considering solar. Six of these zones contain ten glyphs, and each of the other two contain five: in all there are seventy glyphs of the same kind, to which are added the three which border each of the eight asps before mentioned, and the ten, a little smaller but of identical form, placed between the face and the talons of Tonatiuh. In total, they sum 104 solar glyphs, indicative of so many other years. Here as little is it a question of days, as the archaeologists have claimed, identifying dissimilar glyphs of the relief in order to compute the 365 days of the year: a procedure arbitrary and of course illogical in a work of the magnitude of the one we consider here. In reality the circle expresses the Indian century, or huehuetiliztli, period already read in the face of the center. Later we shall see the motive for the repetition of the cipher.
Nothing concrete has been said until now about the following circle. Some call the figures that compose it temples; others have seen them to resemble leaves or mountains; some simply call them little arches; but no one has penetrated their exact significance. In the most authorized descriptions they have generally been designated with the descriptive term “pentagons” (Chavero) or “trapeziodal figures,” symbolism of the most general kind having been attributed to them. If in passing beyond the third zone Peñafiel has said that the archaeologist entered upon the field of conjecture, with respect to this zone, the sixth in the relief, it may be affirmed that up to the present it has been enveloped in impenetrable mystery.
The monolith has no more interesting glyphs. Their number, their distribution, the form of the figure say sufficiently what they represent. They appear in four groups, separated by the great solar rays. The two upper groups present thirteen signs; and each one of the lower, twelve, it being necessary to presume the missing one, hidden by the plumes of the serpents which adorn this part of the stone. In total they sum up four groups of thirteen glyphs of the same form, the significance of which is somewhat of the most important which the relief contains; there is concentrated not only its own significance, but that of many of the other aboriginal monuments. It explains the tenacity with which the glyphs guard their secret.
The archaeologists have said that the characters of which we treat are a kind of pentagons. Without being such, speaking precisely, they may be considered as made up of five somewhat irregular sides; there is noticed, at the same time, the concavity of the inferior side. ​This is the figure of the jewel of Quetzalcóatl, as may be seen in many representations: on pages 42 and 59 of the Codex Borgiano, which represents of great size the double morning and evening star; in the beautiful statue belonging to the Trocadero Museum; on page 16 of the Codex Borbonico; on page 17 of the Codex Vaticanus A; and in others of the Codex Telleriano Remense, etc. The jewel shows an elegant outline with five indentations or side, "figure de cinco angulos," as Sahagún says, and is slightly concave below. In converting itself into a chronographic glyph, it received many conventionalizations—Hamy has described them minutely in his The Jewel of the Wind—which we may see in the monuments; but all are alike in the important details.
Ah well, was it a result of fancy or was it due to deliberate intention that this form attaches to the jewel of the deity? The more important pictographs (e.g., the Dresden Codex) reveal this practice of the tonalpouhque: to take as a unity the five years of the planet which make a running with eight solar years. Such was the origin of the festival of atamalqualiztli, celebrated at the end of this term. The unity thus formed was repeated thirteen times, as we see in the Dresden Codex itself (p. 24), in the Cospi, in the Borgian, in Vaticanus B, and in other documents, The conjunct equals 65 years of the planet, exactly equal to 104 solar, by virtue of the well-known equations:
| 584 | × | 5 | = | 365 | × | 8 | = | 2,920 | days |
| 584 | × | 65 | = | 365 | × | 104 | = | 37,960 | days |
The form of the jewel is allegorical of the five movements of Venus, which make cycle with the eight years of the sun; corroborating it, see the eight dots at the bottom of the representation of the double star on page 59 of the Borgian Codex; see eight solar glyphs under the face of the stone figure of Tepezuntla (commonly called Tzontémoc) corresponding to the five circles which the same beautiful figure has upon the forehead. That this stone represents Quetzalcóatl (the star Venus) in his descent of eight days into hell, the form of the ear ornament, which is typical, manifests without a doubt.
But there was another motive for dividing the jewel of the deity into five parts or distributing it into five points. In developing the calendar of the star, the periods of 584 days are begun with the symbols Cipactli, Cóatl, Atl, Acatl, and Ollin, and continuing the series of Venus years, the same characters are repeated in identical order, giving for result that of the twenty day signs of the native month; only five preside over the revolutions of the star, a fact discovered by the learned Seler. The number results eminently symbolical of the planet. ​We have then a little cycle of five revolutions of Venus equal to eight solar years, which are 2,920 days. Each of the frames inclosing five dots, each of the little pentagons, expresses this chronological value. Supposing the planet at the beginning of its matutinal apparition or its heliacal rising, it will have recovered the identical position, with respect to the star of day, at the termination of the cycle. The fact is a phenomenon of astronomical observation which could not pass unobserved to scrutinizers of the heavens like the Indians: an in order to commemorate it, they celebrated the festival atamalqualiztli of which Sahagún speaks. But we have seen that this unity is repeated thirteen times. There are two reasons for this: one, to equal with Venus years the great period of 104 solar years, a cycle equivalent to 65 synodical movements of the planet; the other, to equalize the two calendars, because when five Venus years have passed, the sixth commences anew with Cipactli, but this character goes this second time not accompanied by the numeral 1, but by 9, necessitating that the five years shall be repeated thirteen times, in order that Cipactli should return to be accompanied by 1, as at the beginning of the period, and the commencement of the one and the other calendar.
The cause of this phenomenon is known. The tonalámatl, that is to say, the series of twenty thirteens, run through the book of the planet the same as through that of the sun, calendars, one and the other, which are made up by the combination of thirteen numbers in order with the twenty day characters, so that these may not be confounded on being repeated. As the number 584 does not contain an exact number of thirteens, there are twelve units over in the first Venus year, eleven in the next, ten in the next, and so on successively, so that Cipactli comes to be accompanied by different numerals, the thirteen times that it begins the year, until the 65 counts of the planet's calendar are complete. Although all archaeologists know this, we copy anew the distribution of the thirteens and of the day characters in the computation which we are considering.
Figures which accompany the initial signs of the Venus year, in a series of 65 years:
| Cipactli | 1 | — | 9 | — | 4 | — | 12 | — | 7 | — | 2 | — | 10 | — | 5 | — | 13 | — | 8 | — | 3 | — | 11 | — | 6 |
| Cóatl | 13 | — | 8 | — | 3 | — | 11 | — | 6 | — | 1 | — | 9 | — | 4 | — | 12 | — | 7 | — | 2 | — | 10 | — | 5 |
| Atl | 12 | — | 7 | — | 2 | — | 10 | — | 5 | — | 13 | — | 8 | — | 3 | — | 11 | — | 6 | — | 1 | — | 9 | — | 4 |
| Acatl | 11 | — | 6 | — | 1 | — | 9 | — | 4 | — | 12 | — | 7 | — | 2 | — | 10 | — | 5 | — | 13 | — | 8 | — | 3 |
| Ollin | 10 | — | 5 | — | 13 | — | 8 | — | 3 | — | 11 | — | 6 | — | 1 | — | 9 | — | 4 | — | 12 | — | 7 | — | 2 |
Now we may understand the thirteen pentagons inscribed in each one of the four parts of the circle of the monument. They denote the number of times that the five characters enter as initials of the Venus year in one huehuetiliztli. They figure in this fashion thirteen times, and just so many times was celebrated in said cycle the festival of the planet, atamalqualiztli, always coinciding with Cipactli. And that the intention of the astronomer-director of the engraving of the relief was to inscribe this number of glyphs, is plainly seen in the upper groups of the sixth circle; without aesthetic prejudice and almost compelled by the demand of symmetry, other pentagons might very well have been located in the space covered by the bands which issue from the serpents' tails. The artist might, with the greatest good taste, have placed six glyphs in this double empty space, but he deliberately prolonged the bands instead. His proposition could not be made more manifest The purpose was the engraving of a number, not of an ornament. This suffices to show us that there are no simply decorative signs in the relief, incomparable synthesis of art and science.
But there are four groups of Venus cycles, four zones of thirteen pentagons. To what necessity of the system can this repetition correspond? The synodical movement of Venus being taken as 584 days, there result 37,960 for each group, or 151,840 for the total of 52 pentagons of the circle. This period represents exactly 416 solar years. In other terms, if each group signifies 65 Venus years, equivalent, as we know, to a huehuetiliztli, the four correspond to as many sacred cycles, winch is what is indicated by the great numerals that surround the head of Tonatiuh, comfortably to the interpretation which we have already given. One and another circle, the second and the sixth, say exactly the same thing: 416 solar years. The fourth zone expresses an equal thing: 260 Venus years, number which is considered sacred. Everything in the monolith concurs in declaring one single and well-considered thought; we shall speak of its origin and admire its profundity and transcendence. Meantime we ​say, as proof that we are not dealing merely with arbitrary theories or purely speculative systems, that the numbers 37,960 and 151,840 appear in the Dresden Codex. Förstemann, its able interpreter, has read them in that admirable astronomical book.
Let us pass to the seventh zone, which forms the border of the monument, figuring two serpents which end in colossal heads of strange and elaborate decoration. This is the pre-eminently beautiful circle of the relief perhaps the most studied, concerning which there have been proposed the largest number of conflicting conjectures. Here we shall confirm the key of the interpretation of the monolith and shall see the sum and confirmation of the preceding data.
Two magnificent serpents encircle the relief and at the lower part of the stone join heads, from whose opened throats peer out human faces confronting each other. The body of the serpents is found to be ornamented through its entire length with an artistic and imaginative richness which, considered simply as decorative, would be a masterpiece; if more than decorative, these glyphs involve precise dates and astronomical symbolisms—the work becomes one of genius than which certainly the nations of antiquity have left nothing more admirable
The signs distributed over the body of the serpents are of three classes: numerals, groups of bars or strokes, and a glyph considered a conventionalized representation of fire; further, four tyings in the tails of the monsters.
All of these elements possess concrete meaning In the so-called flames, which issue from the back of the serpents, there are also groups of four thick bars. In sum the zone includes the following elements: the heads inclosed in the throats of the serpents, with characteristic headdress and attributes; the scales or body divisions of the creatures themselves; numerals made of dots and groups of four bars distributed in the bodies themselves and in the two terminal bands which go off from the tails; other glyphs situated in the inner line of the body of the serpents, which have been considered conventionalizations of fire, although without noticing that these signs bear numerals; and lastly the date indicated by the points of the tails and included within a frame, in the upper part of the monolith. This date is found figured with a cane and thirteen points (13-ácatl).
Let us commence by observing that the heads which appear in the throats are distinct beings or deities, differentiated by characters ​which permit their identification. Both heads protrude the tongues, joining or touching them together in the clearest fashion; here is symbolized the thought of the relief. Archaeologists admit that the tongue symbolizes light in the idols and pictographs representing stars, and it is not possible to doubt after the demonstration which, with the peculiar sagacity in which no one has equaled him, Señor Chavero gave upon this point, studying the greenstone figure, discovered in Papantla, which in place of the tongue presents the mouth perforated for the material passage of light. In a similar manner, the face of Tonatiuh, central to the relief, has the tongue out signifying the irradiation of light through the universe. This considered, what could that be which in so graphic a fashion joins these deities who peer out from throats of time, metaphorically figured by the serpents? The light itself; but their special lights, since here different beings are in question, that is to say, the lights of special celestial bodies. It would be impossible to indicate in more expressive and artistic form the concurrence of two chronological periods determined by the combination of stars which renew the same relative positions which they had before.
Let us undertake to identify the deities; if known, it will be easy to recognize the cycle. The figure of the left semicircumference of the relief is undoubtedly the sun himself. It is distinguished by the glyph of the forehead, identical with that which adorns the face of the central huehueteotl, although without the two numerals which accompany that. The head on the opposite side has not this glyph. The ear ornament, similar to that of Tonatiuh, distinguishes it; the face with the other serpent lacks this. The head of the solar snake has before the nose the sign of the double cane, a character closely related with Tonatiuh and with Xiuhtecuhtli, as is seen in the codices. Ome ácatl (2-cane) is one of the various names of the sun, and two are, in fact, the figures of the cane here represented. Others have recognized in the glyph a handful of herbs, giving us, anyway, the name of Xiuhtecuhtli (lord of the herb and the year). As little does this symbol appear in the face of the opposite serpent.
On the other hand, the figure on the right shows a netting clearly defined, peculiar to Quetzalcóatl in his multiple representations; in front of the nose is a symbolical glyph which we cannot identify because the stone is badly destroyed in this part. . . . . But that which in a special mode distinguishes the two beings is the ear ornament (nacochtli), which is lacking in the figure to the right and identical with ​that which adorns the central Tonatiuh in the figure to the left. The ear ornament possesses distinctive value in the representations of deities. More is not necessary for our purpose; it suffices to affirm that the sun is the star represented in this figure.
What star can it be that the other serpent symbolizes? It is not necessary to meditate long in order to understand it: it is Quetzalcóatl or Venus, the beautiful twin or the plumed serpent, a deity often actually represented in this latter form. Symmetry compelled the artifice of representing by another plumed serpent the corresponding solar cycle; furthermore, the serpent involves the general symbolization of time. The face of Quetzalcóatl wears a net, adornment lacking to that of Tonatiuh; it has no ear ornament, and the sign placed before the nose, now badly defaced and difficult to determine, was without doubt that distinctive of the divinity; yet it appears as if it were 1-cane, unlike the double one of the sun, which gives us one of the names hast known of the personage, Ce ácatl (1-cane), the day of his birth.
The figures identified, it is not difficult to state what chronological period is symbolized in the reunion of the tongues, that is to say, of the respective lights of the stars. It is the huehuetiliztli, the sacred cycle of 104 years, indicate in the wrinkled face of the central Tonatiuh; it is the period at whose end the deified celestial bodies return to occupy a certain position in space and the tables of the respective calendars adjust themselves, attaining harmonious development.
Profound the thought of the astronomer-director of the monument! Here is the form in which the relief expresses it: chronology is born from the movements and relative situation of two stars. In the development of their harmonious revolution, they engender chronological cycles equal as to the time of their termination, but distinct in that which concerns their origin, since the deities who determine them are diverse. Hour after hour the apparent march of the sun and of Venus through the heavens are scrutinized and scrupulously noted in the respective calendars, which advance, one ever upon the other, until 37,960 days course by, an exact cycle, and then the sacred book (teoamaoxtli) complete their round, coinciding with mathematical precision in number and symbol in the thirteens and the twenties of that marvelous arrangement.
Fact in truth surprising: in that same moment the stars approach each other in the celestial vault. If the preceding huehuetiliztli began coincidently with the matutinal apparition of Venus, another time ​the planet will find itself in the same position; and seeing it then so near the star of day, well might the aboriginal priests imagine that the deities confronting each other kissed, touching tongues, at beginning the new pilgrimage through the vault of space. (Here we will mention the following interesting fact: According to calculations of the Berlin astronomer, Berberich, undertaken at the suggestion of Mrs. Zelia Nuttall, the evening star and the new moon were visible on the horizon of the valley of Mexico, half an hour after sunset, on March 14, 1507, date of the new fire for the Indians.) Together with so poetical, exact, and admirable an allegory, they cherished the persistent tradition that one of these encounters was to bring about the destruction of the world.
Let us continue the analysis of the seventh zone. If the heads which face each other, joining tongues, give the huehuetiliztli, in the body of the serpents is directly indicated the number 416 which we have met in other parts of the relief. The reading is made from the groups of four rays, interpreted until now as symbols of fire and in various other fashions, all arbitrary or at least vaguely symbolical, as emblembs of the highest indefiniteness. Nevertheless, their meaning is most clear: each group says ácatl, técpatl, calli, tochtli, names of the four successive years in the ordinary chronology. Very well, the serpent symbolical of the sun presents 52 groups of four rays equivalent to 20 years; added to the 208 corresponding to the other serpent, we have the total of 416 solar years, expressed this time directly, a most interesting fact which we are the first to indicate. Here there is no necessity of recurring to allegorical conceptions. And so deliberate was the intention of inscribing in each one of the serpents precisely 52 groups of rays that the artist, not having sufficient space, was compelled to add those bands which issue from the points of the tails, the only element of the relief which might appear somewhat arbitrary or at least not rigorously aesthetic. They are indispensable for the placing of the four groups that were lacking, already three having been distributed at the border of the monument, above the tails, five in the triangular ends of these, three in each are of its twelve scales, and four in the throats and plumage. The total figure is classic in Indian chronology: there are 52 groups. This number appears in each serpent, a careful examination of the stone sufficing to demonstrate the fact: if up to the present none of the draughtsman and lithographers who have reproduced the stone—except the most skilful ​Iriarte, who devoted four months to the work in order to illustrate a study of Señor Leopoldo Batres—copied this and some of the other elements with exactness, it is because, the meaning of the glyphs being unknown, their number and complicated distribution easily caused them to make errors. Further on we shall say in what the principal errors have consisted and shall speak of one very curious artificial anomaly of the stone.
We have still to explain the signs which form the scales or divisions or the body of the serpents and to count the numeral dots placed at the border of the stone and around the said divisions. Concerning those Beyer and other archaeologists maintain that they are symbolizations of fire. We have no reason to deny it; but our own opinion is that together they indicate the number of cycles or meetings of Venus and the sun, registered in the firmament and in the calendar departing from some certain date; later we shall see what this may be. With respect to the dots, Señor Chavero counted them and interpreted them well, finding in them the number of days in the native year. Nothing more logical: the cyclical coincidence of the 104 solar years and 65 Venus years is effected by the aggregation, one after the other, of series of 365 days. It was natural to place these dots where we find them. And they do not find themselves duplicated in the two serpents because it is the common element of both reckonings; it was sufficient to inscribe them once.
We, however, differ somewhat from Señor Chavero in our way of counting them. There are ten dots each in as many scales, there are eighteen in the single scale which follows the tyings or ligatures, twelve more are circumscribed in the triangle which forms the tail. In sum there are 130 dots on each side, or 260 in going all around, which gives us the fundamental basis of the chronology: the tonalámatl. If, on the other hand, we count the 63 large points of the border of the stone, added to the hundred of the first ten scales, we have 163 numerals, and with the 18 which follow the tyings, they sum up 181 on each side, or 362 in the entire circumference; almost hidden within the claws of the first scale (the first on each side, of course) are two other points, that is, four altogether. In sum there are 366. This is the result which we obtain, and thus we shall state it, even if in this case it appears a little defective; but we do not attempt, as some interpreters, to fit the facts to our theories, but from the facts themselves to infer the true decipherment. It might be admitted that this last dot signifies the intercalated day: the native bissextile.
As for the four tyings located on the tail of each serpent, archaeologists have been in accord in attributing them the value of so many tlalpilli of 13 years, four of which, as everyone knows, formed the classical xiuhtlalpilli, xipoualli, or xiuhmolpilli of the chronological reckonings: 52 years. Each serpent has four tyings, that is to say, 104 solar years are symbolized in the total of the representation. Thus is confirmed the chronological value expressed by the meeting of the heads of the sun and the planet.
We may add that, on the projected part of the cylinder, there are other glyphs, composed in essence of butterflies with stars, groups of flint knives (técpatl), and dots to the number of 156.