Page 551 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

representation. In the Aztec creation legend 36 was added in post-conquest times, perhaps to
preserved in the Histoyre du Mechique (de Jonghe 7 serve as a base for a flagpole.
1905), floods had destroyed the universe at the CREATION STONE The top surface (drawing, center panel) repre-
end of the penultimate age; the sky had fallen Aztec sents the ages into which the Aztec divided the
upon the earth, and had to be raised for a new basalt history of the universe, each successive age being
universe to take form. Tezcatlipoca and Ehecatl known as a "sun" symbolized by the day in the
entered the earth goddess Tlaltecuhtli, the former 54.6 X 45.7 X 25.6 (2lV2 X l8 X loVs) z6o-day calendar (tonalpohualli) on which it
through her mouth, the latter through her navel, Peabody Museum of Natural History, ended. Our present age or sun is represented by
and met in the heart of the goddess —the middle Yale University, New Haven the raised solar disk and will be destroyed by great
of the earth. The two gods then "made the sky earthquakes on the day 4 Ollin (motion), indi-
very strong" and summoned the other gods to Purchased in 1887 by Professor O. C. Marsh of cated by the Ollin day sign in the center of the
help them raise the heavens. This having been Yale at a sheriff's sale in New Haven (MacCurdy disk. The four previous eras are indicated by the
done, the stage was set for the creation of our own 1910), this object has a close iconographical rela- day signs in the four corners, to be read in a coun-
universe. The Escalerillas Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl is tionship to the famous Calendar Stone in Mexico terclockwise direction. The cycle of creations and
the embodiment of this cosmic myth. City. The central perforation with a brass tube destructions to which this representation refers
F.S. and M.D.C.

550 CIRCA 1492