A fresh discovery has reaffirm that the Aztecs will always be near the top of the list of history ’s most badass cultures , not that there was ever much dubiousness anyway .
Flashback to 2015 , when archaeologistsdiscovered a chunky cylindric towermade out of well-nigh 700 human race skulls late within Templo Mayor , one of the biggest temples in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán , which would one day become Mexico City .
Now , it turns out , archeologist had only touched the surface of this deathly memorial . Sciencereports that the squad has since discovered a colossal skull rack , or tzompantli , around 35 meters ( 114 feet ) in distance and 5 beat ( 16 feet ) in height – just as the Spanish conquistador key in their score of the metropolis .
Based on the layout of the construction , they also consider that skull tower had a Twin Falls nearby , although they are yet to find it .
The temple – dedicate to the god of war , the Sun , and ( of course ) human sacrifice , Huitzilopochtli – is essentially the site of industrial - scale sacrificial rite . Initial psychoanalysis suggest that around 75 percentage of the skull belonged to healthy man between the ages 20 and 35 . As previous inquiry has hint , this suggests that the victims were most likely soldier . The remaining 25 pct were women , most probable slave and their children , perhaps taken from the Empire ’s liege settlement .
" The killing of captive , even in a ritual linguistic context , is a inviolable political instruction . It ’s a style to demonstrate tycoon and political influence — and , some people have said , it ’s a means to check your own universe , " John Verano , an archaeologist specializing in human sacrifice at Tulane University in New Orleans , toldScience .
mortal would be dragged to Templo Mayor where priest removed their still - beating hearts . Since the Aztecs consider that the heart was the vessel of the mortal ’s intent and the energy of Sun , the removed heart would be raised to the sky as an go to the gods . Priests would then decollate the organic structure using a volcanic glass dagger , before carving a large hole into the side of the skull and placing it on a rack .
The metropolis of Tenochtitlánflourished between 1325and1521 CE when the Spanish conquistadors came along and destroyed it , along with the Templo Mayor .
Andrés de Tapia , a Spanish soldier who accompanied the infamous conquistador Hernán Cortés in the conquest of Mexico , verbalise of these skull towers and racks in his diary entries . grant to onere - recounting of the storey , the Spanish count the skulls and constitute at least 136,000 in this temple . This was always see as a wild overstatement , however , this raw discovery suggests it might not be quite as exaggerated as previously reckon .
