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68 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM

FROM TOP: DURAN CODEX VIA WIKIMEDIA; RAUL BARRERA (2); HECTOR-MONTANO/INAH

A Towering Aztec

Ritual Uncovered

❯

ACCORDING TO AZTEC

BELIEFS, gods died to

create the world, and

people owed them a debt to

be repaid through large-scale

human sacrifices. Accounts by

16th-century Spanish colonists

painted a grisly picture: miles-long

lines of victims awaiting such

a fate, and more than 100,000

severed heads strung along a

tzompantli, or skull rack, at

Templo Mayor, the Great Temple.

The colonists exaggerated the

death tolls, but sacrifices and

tzompantli were real. Some of the

victims resurfaced in July, when

archaeologists uncovered a tower

made from more than 650 human

skulls near the ruins of Templo

Mayor in Mexico City.

Skulls were likely added to the

tower after public display on the

nearby tzompantli, indicated by

rows of 10-inch holes that once

held wooden posts supporting the

skull rack.

Of the 171 skulls studied so

far, most victims were young

men, likely captured enemy

warriors, but some were women

and children. DNA and isotopic

analysis, currently underway,

should determine where in Central

America the victims originated.

— BRIDGET ALEX

Researchers (upper left) are

analyzing more than 650 skulls

found in the ruins of Templo

Mayor, the great Aztec temple.

The skulls formed a tower and

were caked in lime (left). They

were carefully removed (below).

A 16th-century illustration captures

the scale of a tzompantli, a large rack

on which the Aztecs displayed skulls

of sacrificial victims.