Archaeologists working in Mexico City unearthed a new portion of a renowned Aztec “tower of skulls” comprising 119 human remains.
The finding brings the total number of skulls exhibited in the late 15th-century building known as Huey Tzompantli to more than 600, according to CNN’s Hollie Silverman.
Archaeologists from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) discovered the tower five years ago, and it is considered to be one of seven that formerly stood in Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital.
It’s next to the Templo Mayor, a 14th- and 15th-century religious building dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, the battle god, and Tlaloc, the rain god.
At least three children’s craniums were found among the new skulls uncovered in the tower’s eastern section. The bones were identified by archaeologists based on their size and dental development.
According to Reuters in 2017, academics previously presumed that the skulls in the structure belonged to defeated male warriors, but a fresh study suggests that some belonged to women and children.
“Although we can’t say how many of these individuals were warriors,” archaeologist Barrera Rodrguez stated in an INAH statement, “perhaps some were captives designated for sacrificial ceremonies.”
“We know they’ve all been made sacred.” That is, they were turned into gods’ gifts or even deities’ personifications, for which they were ornamented and treated as such.”
The Aztecs exhibited victims’ skulls on smaller racks across Tenochtitlan before bringing them to the larger Huey Tzompantli structure, according to a 2017 Atlantic article by J. Weston Phippen. The lime-bonded bones were organized in a “large inner-circle that raised and widen[ed] in a sequence of rings,” according to the researchers.
While the tower may look horrifying to modern eyes, Mesoamericans regarded the ritual sacrifice that went into its construction as a way of keeping the gods alive and preventing the universe from being destroyed, according to INAH.
“This vision, which our religious system cannot explain,” the statement adds, “makes the Huey Tzompantli a building of life rather than death.”
The tower, which has a diameter of 16.4 feet, was built in three stages between 1486 and 1502 under the Tlatoani Ahuzotl dynasty, according to archaeologists. Ahuzotl, the empire’s ninth emperor, led the empire to capture parts of modern-day Guatemala as well as areas around the Gulf of Mexico.
During his reign, the Aztec empire grew to its maximum extent, and Tenochtitlan grew significantly. Ahuzotl built Malinalco’s majestic temple, formed a strong government, and built a new canal to supply the city. According to legend, 20,000 captives of war were sacrificed at the 1487 dedication of the new temple, however, this number is disputed.
Spanish conquistadors Hernán Cortés, Bernal Daz del Castillo, and Andrés de Tapia noted the Aztecs’ skull racks in their accounts of the area’s conquest. According to El Economista’s J. Francisco De Anda Corral, the Aztecs piled tens of thousands of skulls “on a large theater made of lime and stone, and on its steps were countless heads of the dead implanted in the lime with the fangs sticking outward.”
When Spanish invaders and their Indigenous allies took Tenochtitlan in the 1500s, they collapsed sections of the towers and dispersed the building’s components around the region, according to the statement.
Researchers discovered the macabre monument in 2015 while restoring a building erected on the site of the Aztec city, according to BBC News.
The cylindrical rack of skulls lies near the Metropolitan Cathedral, which was built on the remains of the Templo Mayor between the 16th and 19th centuries.
In a statement, Mexican Culture Minister Alejandra Frausto remarked, “The Templo Mayor continues to astound us at every level.” “Without a doubt, the Huey Tzompantli is one of our country’s most incredible archaeological finds in recent years.”
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