Ancient tower of skulls found in Mexico City – New York Post

A tower of more than 650 human skulls has been unearthed in Mexico City.

Reuters

As the Jets get close to training camp, I am...

This ones a real head-scratcher.

A tower of more than 650 human skulls including the craniums of women and children has been unearthed deep beneath the heart of Mexico City, according to a report.

The shocking find has raised new questions about sacrifice in the ancient Aztec Empire, as historians had believed Mesomaerican cultures mostly used the severed heads of captured warriors to adorn tzompantli or skull racks, Reuters reports.

We were expecting just men, obviously young men, as warriors would be, and the thing about the women and children is that youd think they wouldnt be going to war, biological anthropologist Rodrigo Bolanos told the agency. Something is happening that we have no record of, and this is really new.

Archaeologists discovered the skulls caked in lime in the cylindrical edifice near the site of Templo Mayor one of the main temples in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, which later became Mexico City, according to the report.

The tower likely formed part of the Huey Tzompantli, a massive array of skulls that terrified Spanish conquistadors when they captured the city under Hernan Cortes in 1521, the news outlet reported.

Andres de Tapia, a Spanish soldier who accompanied Cortes, mentioned tens of thousands of skulls in his account of the conquest, archaeologist Raul Barrera said.

The skull tower is almost 20 feet in diameter, and stands on the corner of the chapel of Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of the sun, war and human sacrifice, according to the report. Its base has yet to be unearthed.

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Ancient tower of skulls found in Mexico City - New York Post