The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations: A Comparative Research Based on a Study of the Ancient Mexican Religious, Sociological, and Calendrical SystemsNuttall, Zelia
Religion
The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations: A Comparative Research Based on a Study of the Ancient Mexican Religious, Sociological, and Calendrical Systems
In the face of this possibility as well as the probability that each glyph
was painted and implied a year, it is interesting to note that, including
the initial glyph, the “Tablet of the Cross” exhibits 108 glyphs on the
side to the left and 124 on the side to the right of the spectator=a total
of 232; the “Tablet of the Cross II” exhibits 76 to the left and 83 to the
right=159; and that in the “Temple of the Sun,” 70 to the left, 159 to the
right and 12 in the middle=241. The “Temple of Inscriptions” exhibits the
initial series (see Maudslay, Biologia, pt. X, pl. 82) and entire walls
covered with glyphs, some of which, as on the tablets enumerated above,
are accompanied by numerals whilst others are not.
In a future publication I shall submit illustrations of these monuments
with the ripened results of my investigations concerning them. For my
present purpose it suffices to have produced substantial proofs that the
ancient dwellers in Palenque employed the same metaphors, the same cursive
method of registration and held the same fundamental principles of
organization that have been shown to underlie the civilizations of Peru,
Guatemala, Yucatan, and Mexico and still survive amongst the Zuñis and
more northern tribes. It is obvious that, at Palenque and the neighboring
Menché and Ixkun, an integral civilization, based on these principles, had
existed for an incalculable length of time. Strangely enough it seems to
form so close a link between Maya and Mexican culture that it almost seems
justifiable to surmise that both Maya and Nahuatl languages were spoken in
these ancient ruined cities.
Proceeding mentally northwards we will not linger at the ruins of Mitla,
the name of which seems to indicate that it had lain to the north of a
great ancient centre of government, since Mictlan in Nahuatl and Mitnal in
Maya both designate the region of the underworld and the north.
Reaching the ultimate stage of our mental exploration of the American
Continent we now transport ourselves to the Valley of Mexico and, on the
site of the ancient capital of Montezuma and his coadjutor, face the three
great monolithic monuments which are popularly known as the Calendar
Stone, the Stone of Tizoc and Huitzilopochtli. In 1886, at the Buffalo
Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, I
presented a “Preliminary Note of an Analysis of the Mexican Codices and
Graven Inscriptions,” in which the opinion was advanced that the “Calendar
Stone” was identical with the “circular elaborately carved tablets which,
according to Padre Duran, were erected in each market-place in ancient
Mexico, and were held in great veneration. They were frequently consulted
and by them the market-days were regulated.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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