Mexican and Central American antiquities, calendar systems, and history; . Fig. 75. Temple and sun symbol, from the Borgian codex. clothed in eagle array, he and a god with an alligator mask, togetherAvith the descending Quetzalcoatl, are bringing down from theheavens the houses of the day and the night. Night is here repre-sented (see figure 73) by a head with closed eyes. This representa- RKLER] EXPLANATION OF WALL PATNTTNGS 311 tion is one which can nnqiiestionably be compared with the represen-tations of day and night among the so-called celestial shields of theMaya manuscripts, and it pro
Mexican and Central American antiquities, calendar systems, and history; . Fig. 75. Temple and sun symbol, from the Borgian codex. clothed in eagle array, he and a god with an alligator mask, togetherAvith the descending Quetzalcoatl, are bringing down from theheavens the houses of the day and the night. Night is here repre-sented (see figure 73) by a head with closed eyes. This representa- RKLER] EXPLANATION OF WALL PATNTTNGS 311 tion is one which can nnqiiestionably be compared with the represen-tations of day and night among the so-called celestial shields of theMaya manuscripts, and it proves that 1 was entirely in the right when1 pronounced this sign of the night in the Maya manuscripts, which isat the same time the hieroglyph for the mnneral 20, to be a head withempty, bleeding eye sockets/ The entire picture in figure 73 appearsto be a remarkable parallel to a, figure 74, from the Dresden manu-script, which was interpreted by Forstemann as the descent of Fig. 76. Mexican deity, from the Vienna codex. I even feel inclined to recognize the original form of the Maya sign,which Forstemann regards as the hieroglyph of the planet Venus, inthe object set with five eyes which is carried on the staiT of thedescending Quetzalcoatl. If that is the case there is so much theless reason for accepting the theory that the planet Venus wasintended to be represented by the eye surrounded by radiating eyes infragment 1. A summing up of the points demonstrated above provesbeyond a doubt, I think, that the eye surrounded by radiating eyes isnot a star eye as I myself formerly designated it, but an eye oflight, a sun eye , kin-ich, as the Mayas called it. Therefore, wemay consider this eye of light of fragment 1 without hesitation ashomologous to the faces surrounded by radiating eyes in the otherfragments of plate xxxvii. For the notions eye and face are See Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, v. 19 (1887), pp. (237)-(246). 312 BUKEAU OF AMEKICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectmayas, bookyear1904
