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0 N o t e s o n M i d d l e A m e r i c a n A r c h a e o l o g y a n d E t h n o l o g y Carnegie Institution of Washington Division of Historical Research No. 11 December 20, 1942 a note on aztec Chronology R.C.E. Long What is important for our purpose is the error of 52 years, one Calendar Round. If this mistake is corrected, then the last year-binding recorded in the Boturini Codex is to be dated 1299 instead of 1351, as it would be by the Codex de 1576; and consequently 1 Tecpatl, the starting point of both picture writings, would be 1116. The Codex de 1576 is the sole source giving only three year-bindings after the foundation of the city. Chimalpahin says there were four, and this can also be deduced from the Anales de Cuauhtitlan, which show four after the founding of the city. These four were also later than the mention of Coxcoxtli at Culhuacan. Curiously enough, Vaillant also gives four after the founding of the city, namely, 1351, 1403, 1455, and 1507; and he agrees with other sources in also putting four before it, namely, 1143, 1195, 1247, and 1299. The last of these is correctly dated by him as in the time of that Huitzilihuitl who was taken prisoner by Coxcoxtli, according to the Boturini Codex. But his 1143 “lst Mexican Cycle” would, according to his chronology, fall before 1163 (properly 1168), which he gives at the date of 1 Tecpatl, the starting point of the codex. If, however, we make the Aztec chronology 52 years longer, as suggested above, then the starting point of the Boturini Codex is 1116 and the four year-bindings recorded in it are 1143, 1195, 1247, and 1299, and agree with Vaillant’s Mexican Cycles I, II, III, and IV. Chimalpahin gives a list of the chiefs who led the Aztec prior to their settling at Tenochtitlan, with the lengths of their reigns and the places of their In the American Anthropologist (1938) Dr. Vaillant has a paper “A Correlation of archaeological and historical sequences in the Valley of Mexico.” I think his chronological scheme should be amended slightly with regard to the Aztec. He says that the records for the Tenochca run back to 1163, the year One Flint (1 Tecpatl), the date of Huitzilopochtli. Presumably this is a printer’s error for 1168, which was a year 1 Tecpatl. This year 1 Tecpatl is the starting point of the count in the Boturini Codex, which has an unbroken sequence of 183 years from there to the year-binding at Chapultepec in 2 Acatl and continued four years beyond that to 6 Acatl when the codex ends. In this last space of four years the codex shows the imprisonment of Huitzilihuitl and the incident in which the Aztec brought back ears instead of captives to their Culhuacan master, Coxcoxtli, whose glyph is given. The Codex de 1576 also starts with 1 Tecpatl and carries on the same count of 183 years to the year-binding at Chapultepec; it is practically a copy of the Boturini up to that point. But it then continues the count to 1576, and by reckoning back from there the date of 1168 for 1 Tecpatl is reached. This codex appears to have two errors. One is that it shows only three yearbindings after the Aztec founded Mexico, thereby shortening the count by 52 years; and the other is that within the Calendar Round it gives the date of the foundation of the city as 1 Acatl instead of the generally accepted date of 2 Calli, 14 years later in the Calendar Round. As a result of these two errors the date of the foundation is put at 1 Acatl (1363) instead of 2 Calli (1325), 38 years earlier. A Note on Aztec Chronology  deaths. This agrees exactly with the above dating of the Boturini Codex, because each of them died at the place where, by that chronology, he would have been at the date of his death, Chimalpahin also says that in 1507 the Aztec bound their years for the ninth time since leaving Aztlan. This would mean that, besides the eight recorded year-bindings, there was another in 1091, while they were on the way from Aztlan and before they reached Culhuacan. How in the Anales...

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