ont clearly reveals the
sculptor's allusion to the head, two hearts, four hands and twenty
fingers, which symbolize these familiar numerical divisions. An indication
that this symbolical statue was probably designed and executed by the same
master who made the circular stone of the Great Plan, is furnished by the
calendar sign 13 Acatl, which is carved under the skull at the back of the
figure.

Deferring an investigation of the significance of this date, I shall now
draw attention to what is to me the most interesting and important feature
of the whole image. The view of the top of the two heads, as may be seen
by the accompanying reproduction from a photograph (fig. 58) exhibits, at
their line of union, a small square with diagonal cross-lines. The
position of this symbol which resembles the top view of a pyramid and
forms, as it were, the apex of the statue, every detail of which is deeply
symbolical, clearly reveals the sanctity and importance attached to this
graphic image of the Centre, the union of four in one or _vice versa_, the
theme on which the native mind played numberless and endless variations.

A reflection, again forced upon one in studying the monumental composite
image of the dual and quadruple forces of nature, is that it must have
been as intelligible to a Maya as to a Mexican, and conveyed the
conception of Kukulcan to the one and Quetzalcoatl to the other. Several
facts point, however, to the greater probability that the original
conception of the monument must have arisen amongst Maya-speaking people.

[Illustration.]

Figure 58.

The divided square, simulating a pyramid and so obviously a symbol of
four=can, carved on the head of a serpent=can, throws an interesting light
upon the probable derivation of the affix=can, which occurs in certain
names of localities in Mexico, and in some cases distinctly stands for
"mountain." It is a fact which has already been cited in Senor Antonio
Penafiel's useful work on the Geographical names of Mexico that, in the
pictographic hieroglyphs of localities the affix can signifies a town,
being synonymous with the _tepec_, _i. e._ tepetl, the Nahuatl name for
mountain or town. One of many similar instances, which could be produced,
is illustrated in his fig. XXIII, 1, where _can_ obviously stands for the
mountain which is represented as twisted or bent over (colhua), in the
hieroglyph for Colhuaca