We now come to a feature which is also found in the Vienna shield, namely, a person falling or descending from the sun or celestial regions. The injured condition of the Vienna specimen renders it impossible to distinguish the sex of the figure, but in the New York specimen a woman is represented, probably a goddess. On several pages of the Codex Nuttall Zouche[98] (pp. 4, 19, 21) are representations of human figures hanging from or plunging from the heavenly band. Seler has connected these scenes with the Venus period of the Mexican calendar. Attached to the band on our shield are five dots. Taken in connection with the eight dots below, respectively four on each side of the hieroglyph at the bottom, one recalls the suggestive fact that the Mexicans were acquainted with the correspondence of eight solar years to five Venus periods, and reckonings connected with the correction of these two periods have been established by both Seler and Bowditch.[99] In the Codex Selden is found an analogous picture, the band of the sky, with a central _tonatiuh_, and a descending human figure attached, below which are two figures. This scene has been interpreted by Beyer[100] as representing the solar god accepting human sacrifice. In our shield, the feature which follows in Codex Selden, depicting this sacrifice, is absent. In our shield, facing the plunging figure, are two human figures, one on each side, holding something like a staff in each hand, similar to those held in the hands of the goddess. From the mouth of each of these figures protrudes an unknown object, perhaps a conch-shell trumpet, but it is not supported by the hands. [Illustration: FIG. 18]