Brutal Aztec rituals revealed - gruesome find of 50 skulls around sacrificial stone in Mexico City

50, five hundred year old, decapitated skulls have been discovered beneath Mexico city, which are believed to be associated with the Aztec god of death Mictlantecuhtli. Some skulls were drilled with holes for use with a skull rack, while others were prepared as masks.

The five skulls with holes are believed to have been buried between 1375 and 1427 and archaeologists consider them an offering of consecration to sacrificial stone they lay beneath

...victims were offered up for ritual sacrifice by priests who split open their abdomen from belly to throat and then pulled out their still-beating hearts.

The find the largest cache of skulls yet discovered at the site and archaeologists say they were likely used in rituals associated with Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec god of death.

Forty-five of the skulls were discovered above the stone, and a further five, more-fragmented specimens were found below which had holes in both sides, suggesting they were once hung on a skull rack.

Some of the skulls had been modified in a way that suggested they were to be made into masks, but never completed

Daily Mail Science

In the usual procedure of the ritual, sacrificial victims would be taken to the top of the temple where four priests would lay them down on a stone slab. The victim's abdomen would be sliced open by a fifth priest using a ceremonial flint knife to cut right through the diaphragm and split open the chest.

The priest would grab the heart and tear it out, still beating. It would then be placed in a bowl held by a statue of the honoured god, and the body thrown down the temple's stairs landing at a terrace at the base of the pyramid.

For the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed about 80,400 prisoners over the course of four days.

Daily Mail Science

Mexico city is the site of the capital of the Aztecs, Tenochtitlan, who dominated the region in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. The Spanish, with native allies, destroyed Tenochtitlan. Many non Aztecs natives were as horrified by Aztec human sacrifice as the Spanish were.

As brutal as the conquistadors were, they did the morally right thing destroying a civilization that sacrificed humans to a death god.

I can only image the terror that captives went through as they waited to have their still beating heart pulled out of their chest and then having their head made into a skull rack or even worse, a skull mask.

reply to post by ollncasino


Actually, they were given all the women and food they wanted in their final hours. A few hours of heaven in exchange for a few minutes of hell.

It was a pretty good deal, especially considering life wasn't all that great for the peasants.

Originally posted by AfterInfinity

Actually, they were given all the women and food they wanted in their final hours. A few hours of heaven in exchange for a few minutes of hell.

It was a pretty good deal, especially considering life wasn't all that great for the peasants.

No offense, but sex and food for a few hours in exchange for your heart getting ripped out doesn't sound like heaven to me.

reply to post by ollncasino

Originally posted by ollncasino

Originally posted by AfterInfinity

Actually, they were given all the women and food they wanted in their final hours. A few hours of heaven in exchange for a few minutes of hell.

It was a pretty good deal, especially considering life wasn't all that great for the peasants.

No offense, but sex and food for a few hours in exchange for your heart getting ripped out doesn't sound like heaven to me.

No offense, but being employed as an Aztec slave or warrior doesn't sound much better.

Originally posted by AfterInfinity

No offense, but being employed as an Aztec slave or warrior doesn't sound much better.

It doesn't, but that doesn't justify the Aztecs taking people captive in the first place to later either enslave or sacrifice. I didn't know captives had the choice of being Aztec warriors.

Is that true?

reply to post by ollncasino


If you had the choice of either killing a captive or forcing that captive to defend your civilization in a manner where they'll probably end up dead anyway, what do you think?

Besides, they likely offered offered/threatened the safety of the captives' families to ensure cooperation. Prisoners are more useful alive than dead.

Any bets on how many were in the 1%...hehe oh what you don't think they had elite rulers?

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by ollncasino

 

Actually, they were given all the women and food they wanted in their final hours. A few hours of heaven in exchange for a few minutes of hell.

It was a pretty good deal, especially considering life wasn't all that great for the peasants.

You call that a fair exchange. OH REALLY?

Do you know who instigated this vile and agony form of murder. ANNANUKI/REPTILES. And they're coming back. Well, maybe, the cosmos is prepared.

It was a vile takeover of them by negative forces, and horrendous fear and suffering upon the people.

As for "peasantry". You forget that these weren't Europeans. They were the indigenous people from Lemuria tradition, and the entire of nature provided very well indeed for them. They were not poor though at times struggled.

Any class system stemmed out of Egypt, and Annanuki.

And yes, there were world wide empires, in the long past.

But the indigenous native populations came from the past cycle before Atlantis and The Equality.

Originally posted by ollncasino
As brutal as the conquistadors were, they did the morally right thing destroying a civilization that sacrificed humans to a death god.

Says who?

They sacrificed people for many reasons. From my understanding many were their vanquished enemies. Some were elites children sacrificed for better farming conditions and others for a whole host of other reasons. I always get a kick out of many who attempt to apply modern virtues and sense or morality to those cultures. The Aztec sacrificed their vanquished enemies to their Gods for various reasons. Chief among them was their gratitude for the victory. Sometimes, They would sacrifice a select few from their own people if it was a perceived necessity, One has to get into the mind of the Aztecs at the time. They had a different set of perceptions of the world and their place in it. Different than the Spaniards and way different than we in the 21st Century.

Were they blood thirsty savages because of this?

Hell NO!

They apparently had a very active religion which required sacrifice. To them it was considered normal. I don't agree with the practice one bit but I understand where they were coming from in their mindset. Their Cities, Cultural development, Mathematics, Astronomy etc etc etc were amazingly sophisticated and fairly advanced considering they had no known contact with the Western world of their period. Developed all on their own as far as we know.

As far as the conquistadors. They were responsible both outright and inadvertently for more deaths and destruction of New world civilizations than the preceding indigenous cultures and civilizations combined. The Spaniards were all about Gold, Conquest and plunder. Hell. Translate the word Conquistador.

Conqueror

The Spanish were known for being meticulous record keepers. What they recorded and described about Human sacrifice is accurate but their perception and understanding of the reasons behind why the Aztec carried out such activities were all skewed by an overly conservative Catholic point of view. This has apparently become a moral debate that is attempting to apply a modern set of morals to a people who did things their way for their reasons..

Did the Spaniard take advantage of this practice to further their agenda?

Hell YES.

They knew full well that when the Church and State heard of such practices that would open the flood gates for further plunder. Because it would be justified on several fronts. 1. The Church would come in to SAVE the savages and while that was going on. 2. The State would move in and rob them blind of all their Gold and Silver. Which backfired on the Spanish economy soon after. [That's a topic of another thread]

Meanwhile and this is undeniable.
The vast majority were wiped out by the plague...

Originally posted by Unity_99

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by ollncasino

 

Actually, they were given all the women and food they wanted in their final hours. A few hours of heaven in exchange for a few minutes of hell.

It was a pretty good deal, especially considering life wasn't all that great for the peasants.

You call that a fair exchange. OH REALLY?

Do you know who instigated this vile and agony form of murder. ANNANUKI/REPTILES.

But the indigenous native populations came from the past cycle before Atlantis and The Equality.

edit on 10-10-2012 by Unity_99 because: (no reason given)

can i get links for ANNANUKI/REPTILES and Atlantis?

i just dont think fairy tales had much to do with the aztecs. (besides their death god they were sacrificing to) which i have never heard had anything to do with ANNANUKI/REPTILES and Atlantis.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Thanks for addressing that very point. To say the Aztec were savage and the Spaniards not is conveniently overlooking the millions slaughtered by Spain in the name of God and King.
As far as I'm concerned the Aztecs had a far more advanced civilization than Europe at the time. It was only their lack of metalworking skills that would doom them to Spanish conquest.
The burning of every manuscript by the friars (pun intended) was an act of ignorance on par with the burning of the library of Alexandria.
The Spanish only did a favor for themselves in destroying the Aztec empire and was mainly due to Cortez' insatiable lust for glory and riches.

Originally posted by ollncasino


As brutal as the conquistadors were, they did the morally right thing destroying a civilization that sacrificed humans to a death god.

edit on 10-10-2012 by ollncasino because: (no reason given)

It was an interesting op right up to that line.

Originally posted by ollncasino

Originally posted by AfterInfinity

Actually, they were given all the women and food they wanted in their final hours. A few hours of heaven in exchange for a few minutes of hell.

It was a pretty good deal, especially considering life wasn't all that great for the peasants.

No offense, but sex and food for a few hours in exchange for your heart getting ripped out doesn't sound like heaven to me.

The demon assigned to Mexico is very powerful. It's still going on as most know. Drug cartels cutting off peoples heads with chainsaws, and other torture is still rampant with the power elite of the drug cartels. Sad but true.That is why it's still so violent over there. That's my belief. Now if you don't believe it, please don't cut off my head.

reply to post by SLAYER69

Very well said slayer, you certainly hit the nail on the head with that reply. I would say it was a hellish world on both sides of the Atlantic. Certainly they were brainwashed in to believing they were doing Gods work, there are plenty of monasteries with hanging bodies of those who were tortured over long periods of time. Was that to convert them or was it for other reasons? Mind you not just the Spanish, the English also enjoyed inflicting pain.Five hundred years ago you could be hung and quartered for many things. Personally, I find it hard to believe that what was happening in Mexico was what was happening all along. I believe the original races had a good idea of how to live peacefully without war. As time passed by they lost the plot, which leads to a gradual decline of true morals.

Originally posted by ollncasino
No offense, but sex and food for a few hours in exchange for your heart getting ripped out doesn't sound like heaven to me.

The vast majority of Roman Gladiators didn't look upon their career choices as being very upwardly mobile either

These are probably the skulls of proud champions.
The captains of a sport which was a cross between soccer and basketball.
Back then it was an honor to win the championship and willingly sacrifice yourself to the Gods, by decapitation.

I don't get the logic myself, being of Mexican descent, I never understood why they decided to sacrifice the finest of all athletic specimen.

If they hadn't, I'm sure the face of the NBA would be a lot different than it is now.

reply to post by ollncasino


So much for the claims by descendants that the Aztecs weren't doing human sacrifice. The thing I find so odd is these people had no dental health care and yet just look at those teeth 500 years later. Unbelievable.

S+F for this one OP

Originally posted by joe7pack


The demon assigned to Mexico is very powerful.

If you get into the studies of powers and principalities, it would be an interesting thread to read.

Originally posted by SLAYER69

They sacrificed people for many reasons.

From my understanding many were their vanquished enemies. Some were elites children sacrificed for better farming conditions and others for a whole host of other reasons. I always get a kick out of many who attempt to apply modern virtues and sense or morality to those cultures. The Aztec sacrificed their vanquished enemies to their Gods for various reasons. Chief among them was their gratitude for the victory. Sometimes, They would sacrifice a select few from their own people if it was a perceived necessity, One has to get into the mind of the Aztecs at the time. They had a different set of perceptions of the world and their place in it. Different than the Spaniards and way different than we in the 21st Century.

Were they blood thirsty savages because of this?

Hell NO

I can't bring myself to defend the practice of human sacrifice. I am genuinely shocked that others do.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Let's go back to the Mayans before them. Talk about brutal. Let's talk about the hipball games. Aztec brutality is nothing compared to the Mayans.

I share your love of ancient history, but it is not always pretty. Brutal, a cliche. But true, the atrocities. These were civilizations depending upon specific rituals/games that determined ruling clans. You really need to see inside the minds of the population at the time to see their motives. Totally different from modern times. It was a fight for survival then, not now. We lost the perspective.