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An ongoing excavation in the heart of Mexico City, once the great Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, has revealed a legendary tower inlaid with hundreds of skulls. This tower was first described by Europeans in the early 16th century, when a Spanish soldier named Andres de Tapia came to the city with Hernan Cortez' invading force. In his memoirs, de Tapia described an "edifice" covered in tens of thousands of skulls. Now his account is corroborated by this historic find.
According to a report from Reuters, the tower is 6 meters in diameter, and once stood at the corner of a massive temple to Huitzilopochtli, an Aztec god associated with human sacrifice, war, and the sun. It's likely the tower was part of a structure known as the Huey Tzompantli, which many of de Tapia's contemporaries also described.
Tzompantli were ceremonial wooden scaffolds used in many ancient cultures of the Americas to display the skulls of human sacrifices. Priests would prepare each skull by drilling two holes in it, then stringing it like a bead on a long cord. Once a set of skulls had been strung together, the cord would be stretched between two wooden posts, to form one row of skulls among many. The sight was designed to terrify the Aztec's enemies, and it certainly worked in the case of Spanish soldiers. Many recorded their terror upon seeing tzompantli in Tenochtitlan.
National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH [Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia]) archaeologist Raul Barrera told Reuters that "the skulls would have been set in the tower after they had stood on public display on the tzompantli." It appears that the skulls were coated in lime and sunk into the wall of the tower in tidy rows.
Source: Ars Technica
Additional Coverage:
Reuters
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 07 2017, @02:24PM (7 children)
"while Christians slaughtered many orders of magnitude more."
Citations needed. And, make 'em good. Before you start, you DO realize that the vast majority of Native Americans who died after the Euros arrived, died of disease? To make your case, you'll have to show that the Euros INTENTIONALLY engaged in germ warfare against the American peoples. And, to make your case, you will also need to examine better the numbers of people put to death by the Azteca over time. A mere column containing ~50,000 skulls is a drop in the bucket.
The Aztec were a death worshipping people. They accepted human sacrifice as necessary to appease the gods.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @10:08PM (6 children)
Okey Dokey.
Siege of Fort Pitt [wikipedia.org], smallpox, Brits.
Upper Missouri [soylentnews.org], smallpox, Americans.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 08 2017, @03:43PM (5 children)
At Fort Pitt, the attempt isn't controversial at all. But, your own link shows the controversy regarding the effectiveness of that attempt. There was an epidemic, anyway. How did the disease get into the fort, to start with? The disease was going around already. It can be argued that the English caused more deaths, but again, there is argument. Small pox is a bit difficult to spread on blankets and linen.
OK - you've established an instance of intention. The other link doesn't want to load for me.
I'm also aware of some "good Christian" people later in history who attempted to spread disease in the same manner. Can't remember details at the moment, but I've read the stories.
And, again, the efficiency of spreading small pox with blankets is highly questionable.
But, I must point out, that at these late dates, when the English and/or Americans actually tried to spread disease, the vast majority of Native Americans had already died off due to disease. At this point in time, the attempts become very nearly irrelevant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @08:03PM (4 children)
A simple apology for your ignorance would have sufficed.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 09 2017, @11:27AM (3 children)
And, a simple apology for your arrogance will suffice here. Disease killed most of the Native Americans, not White Eyes. That doesn't excuse those attempts by the whites to kill the natives with disease, but those attempts were pretty much ineffective. Ignorance and nature killed most of the Native Americans, despite all the various attempts to paint history differently.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 09 2017, @09:04PM (2 children)
Shut up, Runaway!! White Eyes? Who ever even said that? You live on Osage ground, one would think you would be more respectful. Idiot.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 10 2017, @07:46PM (1 child)
Respect, you say? Maybe you should have enough respect to learn some Native American history. The Osage are known to white people as "plains Indians". The Osage started out east of the Mississippi, in direct competition with the Iroquois nation. By the time the first White man met an Osaage, their culture was that of buffalo hunters on the high plains. Their culture was a warrior culture. Where I live, the Caddo ruled. Like the Iroquois nation, the Caddo tribes were rather peaceful, incorporating agriculture into their hunter/gatherer society, Respect. You should try some. The Caddo were more civilized than the Osage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 11 2017, @02:56AM
So did the Caddo do the whole tower of skulls thing? Or is that just the KKK? Iroquois? In Arkansas?