Note IX-57 — Chapter IX · ANTIQUITIES OF THE CENTRAL PLATEAUX.
Reading edition
Leon y Gama, Dos Piedras, pt. ii., pp. 46-73. Discovered December 17, 1791; 3 varas, 1 pulgada, 4½ lineas in diameter; 1 vara, 1 pulgada high; material a hard, dark-colored, fine grained stone, which admits of a fine polish. Humboldt gives the dimensions 3 mètres diameter, 11 décimètres high; he also says the groups are 20 in number. Vues, tom. i., pp. 315-24, (fol. ed. pl. xxi.); Id., in Antiq. Mex., tom. i., div. ii., pp. 20-1, suppl. pl. iv., showing the rim. Nebel, Viaje, gives plates of upper surface,—showing, however, no groove—all the groups on the rim, and one group on a larger scale. He says the material is 'basalto porfírico,' and the dimensions 9×3 feet. Bullock, Mexico, pp. 335-6, says, 25 feet in circumference. He also took a plaster cast of this stone. A mass of basalt 9 feet in diameter, and 3 feet high, believed by the author to be in reality a sacrificial stone. Mayer's Mex. as it Was, pp. 119-22; Id., Mex. Aztec, etc., vol. i., pp. 114-15; Id., in Schoolcraft's Arch., vol. vi., p. 586, with plates and cuts in each work. According to Fossey, Mexique, p. 214, the sculptured figures represent a warrior as victorious over 14 champions. 'I think that it is the best specimen of sculpture which I have seen amongst the antiquities of Mexico.' Thompson's Mex., p. 122; Latrobe's Rambler, pp. 171-2; Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 340, vol. iv., pl. unnumbered; Tylor's Anahuac, p. 224; Bradford's Amer. Antiq., p. 108; Prescott, Hist. Conq. Mex., tom. i., p. 85, with plate.