Giving a glimpse, perhaps, into a practice of human sacrifice by the Aztecs, archaeologists working in Mexico City have discovered more than 650 skulls.
The skulls were encrusted in lime near a main temple in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, as Mexico City formerly was known.The crania include those believed to have been of children and women.
Experts say the tower of human skulls evidently is linked to Huey Tzeompantli, which horrified Spanish conquerors when, let by Hernan Cortes, they took over the city.
Prior to the Spanish conquest, severed heads of defeated warriors were displayed on skull racks, Reuters said.
“We were expecting just men, obviously young men, as warriors would be, and the thing about the women and children is that you’d think they wouldn’t be going to war,” said Rodrigo Bolanos, a biological anthropologist investigating the find, to Reuters.
“Something is happening that we have no record of, and this is really new, a first in the Huey Tzompantli,” he added.
Raul Barrera, an archaeologist who worked at the site expressed certainty that the tower is one of several skull groups discussed by a Spanish soldier who accompanied Cortes in the 1521 conquest of Mexico, Reuters reported.
Barrera expects the number of skulls to rise as the excavations continue.
Human sacrifices were a ritual of the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican peoples who used the practice to make offerings to the sun.
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