Aztec tower of human skulls uncovered

Link

Neat little discovery. All I can think about when I read these type of stories is how brutal it must have been back then. I understand that it was probably just their "thing", but makes you wonder how one even gets the idea to neatly place a bunch of severed heads in such a fashion. Just imagine the scene before they turned into skulls.

Tales of the tower of skulls which struck fear into the hearts of Spanish conquistadors have been passed down through the generations in Mexico.

Said to be the heads of defeated warriors, contemporary accounts describe tens of thousands of skulls looming over the soldiers - a reminder of what would happen if they did not conquer territory.

For the next 500 years, the skulls lay undisturbed underneath what was once the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, but is now Mexico City.

Until, that is, a group of archaeologists began the painstaking work of uncovering their secrets two years ago.

What they found has shocked them, because in among the skulls of the young men are those of women and children - bringing into question everything historians thought they knew.

I guess this changes things?

"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," Rodrigo Bolanos, a biological anthropologist investigating the find, told news agency Reuters.

"Something is happening that we have no record of, and this is really new, a first."

I know absolutely nothing about their history so your guess is as good as mine. Did women and children also go to war? My guess is they were probably kidnapped and tortured before becoming a trophy. Or was this some type of ritual?

a reply to: knowledgehunter0986

According to wikipedia they sacrificed humans to repay their debts to 'the gods':

Sacrifice was a common theme in Mesoamerican cultures. In the Aztec "Legend of the Five Suns", all the gods sacrificed themselves so that mankind could live. Some years after the Spanish conquest of Mexico, a body of Franciscans confronted the remaining Aztec priesthood and demanded, under threat of death, that they desist from this traditional practice. The Aztec priests defended themselves as follows: Life is because of the gods; with their sacrifice they gave us life.... They produce our sustenance... which nourishes life.[9]


What the Aztec priests were referring to was a central Mesoamerican belief: that a great, continuing sacrifice of the gods sustains the Universe. Everything on earth is tonacayotl—"spiritual flesh-hood". All things—earth, crops, moon, stars and people—spring from the severed or buried bodies, fingers, blood or the heads of the sacrificed gods. Humanity itself is macehualli, "those deserved and brought back to life through penance".[10] A strong sense of indebtedness was connected with this worldview. Indeed, nextlahualli (debt-payment) was a commonly used metaphor for human sacrifice, and, as Bernardino de Sahagún reported, it was said that the victim was someone who "gave his service".

Human sacrifice was in this sense the highest level of an entire panoply of offerings through which the Aztecs sought to repay their debt to the gods. Both Sahagún and Toribio de Benavente (also called "Motolinía") observed that the Aztecs gladly parted with everything: burying, smashing, sinking, slaying vast quantities of quail, rabbits, dogs, feathers, flowers, insects, beans, grains, paper, rubber and treasures as sacrifices. Even the "stage" for human sacrifice, the massive temple-pyramids, was an offering mound: crammed with treasures, grains, soil and human and animal sacrifices that were buried as gifts to the deities. Adorned with the land's finest art, treasure and victims, these temples became buried offerings under new structures every half a century.

en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: knowledgehunter0986

Cool find! So gruesome..
I'd be interested in hearing more information on the site once the find has been studied. I doubt the skulls prove that women and children fought in combat, though.

Enjoy your day, Hunter!

a reply to: WombRaider69

Yea I figured that much, it seems like every nation did some form of human sacrificing. I always believed the ancients knew more than we did. If you want to get all tin-foily, one could argue it's still happening right now and being hidden from us.

a reply to: zosimov
I would totally produce a tower or wall of skulls in the apocalypse from those who would intrude in my domain with bad intentions!
Aztecs are nuts, no wonder their descendants in Central America like the behead people like those in the Middle East.

a reply to: zosimov

Yea who knows.. facsinating stuff though.

But whatever happened to them, I'm betting it wasn't nice, lol

Enjoy your day too zosi

Woman and children skulls in there too. Maybe it is not a warrior display, maybe these are the skulls of the residents of the city. Maybe they developed a tradition of having your skull put into cement after you died in that tomb.

I do not believe the old Spanish, they wanted to make the people in Spain believe they were killing bad people over here, they used anything they could to justify their killing of people to steal what they owned. Unless I see evidence to definitely prove the Spanish's claim about this, which is pretty impossible since they destroyed everything after looting it, I will not believe the Spanish writings about any of the Indians here in America.

These Spanish needed to justify killing to the Church. They could fabricate evidence, they made everyone believe that nobody could trust these people if they said anything. The Spanish were not the only ones that did this, many powerful nations did the same thing all over the world, looting what was valuable and destroying evidence, then reconditioning the woman and children to believe what they say is real. This is not a church thing, this is a common human tactic of the past. We call it propaganda today, we still do this kind of stuff today.

a reply to: rickymouse
Oh, your thinking Paris underground mausoleum type stuff?? Thats certainly a possibility. But the Aztecs did have a rich history of human sacrifice. Most civilizations early in their development did, including the Europeans and Asians. I think its just a primitive step in the attempt to explain or rationalize their beliefs?

Imagine if it worked out the way witch burning was done. Oh this political opponent is threatening my reign of power? Publicly announce he as volunteered to have himself sacrificed for our Gods! Yea, if only everyone would be so willing to offer themselves up for the Sun's blessings to our people.

What a # time to live. I probably would have preferred them lopping off my head after cutting out my heart to being burned alive at the stake though. That just sounds too difficult.

originally posted by: knowledgehunter0986
a reply to: WombRaider69

Yea I figured that much, it seems like every nation did some form of human sacrificing. I always believed the ancients knew more than we did.

Exactly, I believe that the gods the Aztecs worshipped were demon 'gods'.

one could argue it's still happening right now and being hidden from us.

Ronald Bernard and countless other people have already exposed the people that still partake in human sacrifices:
We Are Being Ruled By Satanists, When Are We Going To Wake Up?
After checking out this thread you should also know why they found skulls of children.

a reply to: rickymouse

You could be right.

It seems the core of human nature and human instincts doesn't change, only evolves. In many ways (even literally), we are still sacrificing humans.

a reply to: WombRaider69

Yep. I'm a pretty firm believer that TPTB are a bunch of Satanists that partake in all types of esoteric rituals.

a reply to: worldstarcountry

 if only everyone would be so willing to offer themselves up for the Sun's blessings to our people. 

There's a group of people right now that are sacrificing themselves for their God.

originally posted by: knowledgehunter0986
a reply to: WombRaider69

Yea I figured that much, it seems like every nation did some form of human sacrificing. I always believed the ancients knew more than we did. If you want to get all tin-foily, one could argue it's still happening right now and being hidden from us.

We have a name for sacrificing people to the corporate gods....it's called WAR

Different Gods, different methods ....same result. DEATH

theres also a negative side....

Pics or it didn't happen...

a reply to: olaru12

You know, that's an interesting perspective and you're absolutely right.

a reply to: Notably0ffbeat

There's some pictures in the link

Lol, some other long ago forgotten empires solution to dissent or rebellion. Same as now...

Khmer Rouge

Hiroshima

Id show you pics of Vlads field of impaled victims or the Romans execution hiway too, but they don't exist except in retellings.

a reply to: WombRaider69

I wonder how much of our knowledge is right about ancient people. we have skulls piled like that many places like Rome's Ancient Catacombs

originally posted by: knowledgehunter0986
a reply to: WombRaider69

Yea I figured that much, it seems like every nation did some form of human sacrificing. I always believed the ancients knew more than we did. If you want to get all tin-foily, one could argue it's still happening right now and being hidden from us.

Miners in Bolivia worship a deity called El Tio, sacrificing llamas at mine entrances in order to protect them from harm and industrial accidents:

en.wikipedia.org...

These are people who don't follow basic mine safety precautions like hard helmets, safety mesh, roof bolts, wooden arches. Instead, they are prepared to take their chance with rocks falling down from the ledges in the ceiling of the mine.

originally posted by: worldstarcountry
a reply to: rickymouse
Oh, your thinking Paris underground mausoleum type stuff?? Thats certainly a possibility. But the Aztecs did have a rich history of human sacrifice. Most civilizations early in their development did, including the Europeans and Asians. I think its just a primitive step in the attempt to explain or rationalize their beliefs?

Imagine if it worked out the way witch burning was done. Oh this political opponent is threatening my reign of power? Publicly announce he as volunteered to have himself sacrificed for our Gods! Yea, if only everyone would be so willing to offer themselves up for the Sun's blessings to our people.

What a # time to live. I probably would have preferred them lopping off my head after cutting out my heart to being burned alive at the stake though. That just sounds too difficult.

Aztecs, like most European countries did execute their criminals if the offense deemed it necessary. Even the US has the death sentence. They did a public exhibition of it too, just like the hangings of people in early America.

There is no evidence at all that shows it was a religious ritual. Even the Hawaiians would sacrifice people to volcanos, but in actuality, them mostly sacrificed people who were troublesome, not innocent virgins.

I read a lot of history about these cultures. I used to believe they were sacrificing people to gods till I read the interpretations of some people who extensively studied the stuff. The person explained, when executing a criminal they did do it in their gods name, that was part of their culture. Women are stoned for being unfaithful in other countries still today, it is part of their religion, but still it is more a part of their society, not their religion.

We tend to blame bad on religion a lot if it does not meet with our beliefs. We kill murderers yet condone the ancient aztecs for their actions. But we do not stick their heads on poles around the cities though, that now is reserved for billboards to sell products.