AZTEC HUMAN SACRIFICES
A study of remains discovered in Mexico suggests that the Aztecs routinely beheaded, burned and boiled their sacrificial victims.
The often gruesome stories told by European invaders of the sacrificial rituals carried out in Aztec society may have had more basis in truth than previously thought, new research suggests. Experts in Mexico have examined the fragmented skeletal remains of as many as 138 sacrificial victims who were killed between the 14th and early 16th centuries – almost certainly on top of the main pyramid temple in the heart of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, which is now Mexico City. The osteological analysis indicates that their fates may have matched the grisly nature of the descriptions that featured in the accounts of Spanish colonists: at least 10 per cent had their flesh removed within the temple’s ceremonial complex. Cut marks caused by this procedure were found on shin bones, upper leg bones, vertebrae, pelvic bones, skulls and jaws.
The research also reveals that many of the bones had been subjected to intense heat, either by being burned or boiled. An estimated 20 per cent of the remains at the site showed evidence of burn marks. The study, carried out by archaeologist Gabino Lopéz Arenas, is of particular importance because it substantially increases the body of academic knowledge of Aztec rituals associated with human sacrifice. Indeed, the newly released data is likely to prompt archaeologists and historians to re-examine surviving texts, many of which were created by early Spanish invaders. The more lurid claims featured in these records have previously been treated with caution by some scholars, because it is thought that a desire to play up the supposed ‘moral’ dimension of Spanish repression and enslavement made conquistadors and clergy eager to paint the Aztecs in as negative a manner as possible.
Key among such documents are the 16th-century accounts of the Fransiscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún, most notably in his "Historia General de las Cosas de la Nueva España" (‘General History of the Things of New Spain’). According to his version of events, many of the victims were captives, thought to have been prisoners of war seized in battle, as well as women and children. At many of the festivals of the Aztec ritual calendar, captives were taken to the temple for the sacrificial rituals. According to Sahagún’s accounts, they were then stretched out on their backs on a sacrificial stone at the top of the pyramid. Their chests were cut open with flint knives in order to extract their hearts, which were held aloft by the priests as offerings to the sun god.
Other early Spanish colonial sources suggest that, at some stage after being killed, many of the victims were decapitated. This claim appears to be borne out by Lopéz Arenas’s research, which points to the remains of almost all of the victims showing evidence of having had their heads removed.
Theories that these would then have been displayed on giant ‘skull racks’ in the temple complex appear to be supported by a series of archaeological investigations in Mexico City, including excavations carried out there over recent months. This latest dig has found three human skulls featuring holes where it is thought they would have been attached to such a rack.
A spokesman for Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History said: “Lopez Arenas’s research sheds remarkable new light on Aztec sacrificial and religious practices by revealing the ways in which the bodies of the victims were treated. The osteological and other evidence is of substantial importance, and helps us to develop a greater understanding of the Aztec world.”
By David Keys in "BBC History Magazine", March 2014. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa
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