Posted on 03/30/2026 5:01:43 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
La Brújula Verde reports that work along the route of a passenger train uncovered an altar, or momoztli, in central Mexico near the site of Tula, the ancient Toltec capital. The momoztli has been dated to between A.D. 900 and 1150. Archaeologist Víctor Francisco Heredia Guillén of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History said that the structure had at least three tiers. The first tier is a stone base thought to be made of andesite, a type of volcanic rock. These blocks are each about four inches long. The next tier consists of slabs made of the same material, while the upper tier features several rounded stones and basalt rock. Two skulls were uncovered near the altar's base. Beneath the skulls, the researchers found a compacted stucco surface, under which they discovered another two skulls and several large bones. A black bowl containing another vessel, other ceramic vessels, and obsidian fragments and blades were also unearthed. Heredia Guillén said that the bones will be analyzed for age, sex, and health status at the time of death. Scientists will also look for any cut marks or evidence of decapitation on the bones. The excavation of the altar also revealed evidence of a larger structure surrounding it, suggesting that the altar may have been placed in a courtyard. "We suppose these were either rooms or an elite context, or groups of higher hierarchy, remains of palaces that may have existed at the site. We know that at the edges of Tula there were neighborhoods of upper and middle classes, and much farther away, those of common people," Heredia Guillén concluded. To read more about Tula, go to "Mexico's Butterfly Warriors."
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
Sorry, i mean dude as it is used in a expression as in “Dude, get a Dell” or such.
I am not comparing Cortez to Samson in biblical terms, i am noting that both were rough men. Just read about Samson, he indeed was a flawed man, but still used of God.
If God had to use perfect men to achieve his means, he could use nobody.
This is not to say violent is good. It’s more like the violence on a body when a doctor cuts you open and removes a cancer. Similar knife/wound can be made by someone trying to kill you....The difference is intent.
This is why our laws take into account intent.
I’ve read that, too-the Natives made great converts because those priests were very well trained at tying local beliefs and characters into the Catholic doctrine-they had been doing that with pagan societies everywhere they went since the days of the Holy Roman empire...
We aren’t talking about modern times here-cultural relativism didn’t exist as a term or even a concept. It does not even apply to those times-the political and cultural goings-on were not the same as now-nobody’s culture was even considered-only taking other people’s stuff by military conquest, getting some slaves, territory and turning a nice profit by exploiting the natural resources and shipping them over to Europe to sell, etc, etc-religious conversion was just another tool to do that-apples and oranges.
Western civilization, Asian civilization, etc was not above genocide for fun and profit back then-especially the Spaniards-they’d already been torturing and killing anyone who rebelled in Spain since they became part of the Roman Empire over 1000 years before.
The Aztecs weren’t all annihilated, either-the smart ones converted, Cortez’s mistress founded a convent, and many people went back to where they came from in the 1st place a few hundred years before-to the American SW and their Apache cousins-they share DNA and the same language group...
My cousin’s husband was an archaeologist-he was very into paleo-indians, where they went to over the years, who they interacted with. There have been several DNA studies showing Aztecs and Apaches were once the same bunch-one part went South and after wandering around and raiding for awhile became Aztecs for whatever reason-and after the conquest, some of them came back here and just blended in, which makes perfect sense-and they seem to have behaved better here, too...
I’m not a rabid admirer of any of the Natives in the Americas at that time, where conquest was a way of life, but I’m not an admirer or the Spanish, either-the rest of Europe didn’t seem to be at ease with them in the 15th-16th centuries, writing about their extreme cruelty and treachery. They are mostly socialists in Spain now, so I thank my ancestors for booking passage to the New World about 400 years ago, so I didn’t have to do it now...
It is too bad conquistador DNA has been diluted into socialism in Spain today. The civilized world could use some of that medieval kick ass brutality to go against the Moors/Muslims now-like turning loose a bunch of Klingons on them. I could support that...
The Spaniards were candidates for sainthood, because their mass burnings of heretics were so much more merciful and painless. Glad their God had no interest in reveling in human suffering and blood since burning to death was so much less bloody.
When Romans defeated Spartacus’ slave revolt, thousands of fighting slaves were crucified along the road.
Cortez’ letters to King Carlos are one good source, another is the book written by his officer, Bernal Diaz. When studying in Mexico City, I took a linguistics class and covered some Aztec language (Nahuatl). The people who helped Cortez were of the Tlaxcalla tribe. Not long in the past a prior Aztec governor decided the people needed more protein, so developed the institution of the “flowery” war. The prisoners taken in those wars were sacrificed and eaten. They had no large meat animals like cattle, buffalo, antelope, etc. Only turkeys and chickens and some fish. The Nahuatl word for tortillas is Tlaxcali. Aztecs and other Indians did not die immediately of the flu. Over a century, millions of Indians died of various new diseases. Some estimate the North American Indian population was cut to 1/10th of the number from before the Spaniards showed up.
When I was in Mexico in the late 1950s, there were 1/2 million Aztec language Nahuatl speakers who probably did not speak Spanish.
The Spaniards never sacrificed 80,000 people on top of a pyramid in one weekend like the Aztecs did on the Templo Mayor pyramid in 1487. Perhaps that one act so horrified God he sent the Conquistadors to properly chastise the demonic Aztecs.
Cortez wrote they ate the arms and legs of the sacrificed people, and fed the heads and torso to wild pigs.
Bernal D’s “Conquest of New Spain” was one of my texts in a Latin American history class I took. There were a couple of corrections by the translator (Diaz had a couple of small errors involving which village came before the other, that kind of thing) but had first person details otherwise unavailable. The remarkably lucky shot that saved all their remaining asses at Teotihuacan is one of those.
That’s with the usual “if memory serves” proviso.
The Aztecs’ “flower wars” were not limited to just the Tzaxcalla.
And the Aztecs had this long wooden cagelike structure in front of the pyramid of the sun. Their cute name for it was “the corncrib”, but it held the severed heads (and over time, fleshless skulls) of their many human sacrifices.
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