Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol. 1 of 2: A Historical, Geographical, Political, Statistical and Social Account of That Country From the Period of the Invasion by the Spaniards to the Present Time.Mayer, Brantz
History
Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol. 1 of 2: A Historical, Geographical, Political, Statistical and Social Account of That Country From the Period of the Invasion by the Spaniards to the Present Time.
THE AZTEC CALENDAR STONE, another monument of Mexican antiquity, was
found in December, 1790, buried under ground in the great square of
the capital. Like the idol image of Teoyaomiqui, and the sacrificial
stone, it is carved from a mass of basalt, and is eleven feet eight
inches in diameter, the depth of its circular edge being about seven
and a half inches from the fractured square of rock out of which it
was originally cut. It is supposed, from the fact that it was found
beneath the pavement of the present _plaza_, that it was part of the
fixtures of the great Teocalli of Tenochtitlan, or that it was placed
in some of the adjoining edifices on palaces surrounding the temple.
It is now walled into the west side of the cathedral, and is a
remarkable specimen of the talent of the Indians for sculpture, at the
same time that its huge mass, together with those of the sacrificial
stone and the idol Teoyaomiqui, denote the skill of their inventors in
the movement of immense weights, without the aid of horses.
* * * * *
The Aztecs calculated their civil year by the solar; they divided it
into eighteen months of twenty days each, and added five complimentary
days, as in Egypt, to make up the complete number of three hundred and
sixty-five. After the last of these months the five _nemontemi_ or
"useless days" were intercalated, and, belonging to no particular
month, were regarded as unlucky, by the superstitious natives. Their
week consisted of five days, the last of which was the market day; and
a month was composed of four of these weeks. As the tropical year is
composed of about six hours more than three hundred and sixty-five
days, they lost a day every fourth year, which they supplied, not at
the termination of that period, but at the expiration of their cycle
of fifty-two years, when they intercalated the twelve days and a half
that were lost. Thus it was found, at the period of the Spanish
conquest, that their computation of time corresponded with the
European, as calculated by the most accurate astronomers.
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