Occasionally even experts make mistakes!

At first glance he could well be right. But the text in the original codex gives the game away: it reads 'Thus was done the blowing of trumpets: when it was late at night, when it was already approaching midnight, the trumpets were sounded, that all the priests might offer blood... Thus were men awakened: those known as the beaters began the keeping of the watch; and if any did not awake, they poured water upon him...' (Pic 2).

Picture 2: The crucial text from the Florentine Codex

The conch was not just an important announcing instrument (played 4 times during the day and 5 during the night), it had many associations with gods, women and fertility, the moon, the number zero (for the Maya) and the wind: it was one of the key symbols of Quetzalcóatl-Ehécatl, the wind god, who had the power to blow life into an object (the shell) that would otherwise stay ‘lifeless’ for ever. Can you see the shell hanging round Ehécatl’s chest (Pic 3)?

Picture 4: Look for this shell design on Ehécatl, the Aztec wind god...