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Boiled bones show Aztecs butchered, ate invaders
Reuters ^ | 23 Aug 2006 | Catherine Bremer

Posted on 08/23/2006 9:54:02 AM PDT by Marius3188

CALPULALPAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Skeletons found at an unearthed site in Mexico show Aztecs captured, ritually sacrificed and partially ate several hundred people travelling with invading Spanish forces in 1520.

Skulls and bones from the Tecuaque archaeological site near Mexico City show about 550 victims had their hearts ripped out by Aztec priests in ritual offerings, and were dismembered or had their bones boiled or scraped clean, experts say.

The findings support accounts of Aztecs capturing and killing a caravan of Spanish conquistadors and local men, women and children travelling with them in revenge for the murder of Cacamatzin, king of the Aztec empire's No. 2 city of Texcoco.

Experts say the discovery proves some Aztecs did resist the conquistadors led by explorer Hernan Cortes, even though history books say most welcomed the white-skinned horsemen in the belief they were returning Aztec gods.

"This is the first place that has so much evidence there was resistance to the conquest," said archaeologist Enrique Martinez, director of the dig at Calpulalpan in Tlaxcala state, near Texcoco.

"It shows it wasn't all submission. There was a fight."

The caravan was apparently captured because it was made up mostly of the mulatto, mestizo, Maya Indian and Caribbean men and women given to the Spanish as carriers and cooks when they landed in Mexico in 1519, and so was moving slowly.

The prisoners were kept in cages for months while Aztec priests from what is now Mexico City selected a few each day at dawn, held them down on a sacrificial slab, cut out their hearts and offered them up to various Aztec gods.

Some may have been given hallucinogenic mushrooms or pulque -- an alcoholic milky drink made from fermented cactus juice -- to numb them to what was about to happen.

TEETH MARKS

"It was a continuous sacrifice over six months. While the prisoners were listening to their companions being sacrificed, the next ones were being selected," Martinez said, standing in his lab amid boxes of bones, some of young children.

"You can only imagine what it was like for the last ones, who were left six months before being chosen, their anguish."

The priests and town elders, who performed the rituals on the steps of temples cut off by a perimeter wall, sometimes ate their victims' raw and bloody hearts or cooked flesh from their arms and legs once it dropped off the boiling bones.

Knife cuts and even teeth marks on the bones show which ones had meat stripped off to be eaten, Martinez said.

Some pregnant women in the group had their unborn babies stabbed inside their bellies as part of the ritual.

In Aztec times the site was called Zultepec, a town of white-stucco temples and homes where some 5,000 people grew maize and beans and produced pulque to sell to traders.

Priests had to be brought in for the ritual killings because human sacrifices had never before taken place there, Martinez said.

On hearing of the months-long massacre, Cortes renamed the town Tecuaque -- meaning "where people were eaten" in the indigenous Nahuatl language -- and sent an army to wipe out its people.

When they heard the Spanish were coming, the Zultepec Aztecs threw their victims' possessions down wells, unwittingly preserving buttons and jewellery for the archaeologists.

The team, which began work here in 1990, also found remains of domestic animals brought from Spain, like goats and pigs.

"They hid all the evidence," said Martinez. "Thanks to that act, we have been allowed to discover a chapter we were unaware of in the conquest of Mexico."


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; Unclassified
KEYWORDS: ancientautopsies; archaeology; aztec; bones; cannibals; celebratediversity; godsgravesglyphs; mexico; skeletons; spainsh; tecuaque
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1 posted on 08/23/2006 9:54:06 AM PDT by Marius3188
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To: SunkenCiv

BBQ ping!


2 posted on 08/23/2006 9:54:38 AM PDT by Marius3188 (Happy Resurrection Weekend)
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To: Marius3188

I've never seen a good recipe for conquistidor.


3 posted on 08/23/2006 9:55:15 AM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: Marius3188
Skulls and bones from the Tecuaque archaeological site

Go Yale!

4 posted on 08/23/2006 9:56:00 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy ( “I'm the Emperor, and I want dumplings!” (German: Ich bin der Kaiser und will Knödel.))
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To: Marius3188

What's interesting about this is so many mainstream historians dismissed the account by the conquistadors as wild exaggeration, utter fabrication, based on bigotry against natives etc... Well it turns out the spanish simply told the plain truth in their accounts on this one...


5 posted on 08/23/2006 9:56:58 AM PDT by Mount Athos
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To: Marius3188

Ah yes, the noble savage.


6 posted on 08/23/2006 9:57:34 AM PDT by RexBeach
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To: Marius3188

Mmm...new official US immigration policy - announce that captured illegals will get the "aztec treatment".


7 posted on 08/23/2006 9:57:36 AM PDT by Fitzcarraldo
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To: nickcarraway

"I've never seen a good recipe for conquistidor."

That's because you have to cook them slowly to get them tender. You are better off cooking the monks that accompanied them -- especially the Friars.


8 posted on 08/23/2006 9:58:20 AM PDT by No Truce With Kings (The opinions expressed are mine! Mine! MINE! All Mine!)
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To: nickcarraway
I've never seen a good recipe for conquistidor.

It wasn't so much the recipe but the presentation. They would serve the cooked Spaniards on their own armor which was the first time a Mexican waiter said, 'Careful, the plate is hot'.

9 posted on 08/23/2006 9:58:40 AM PDT by pikachu (Be alert --we need more lerts!)
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To: Marius3188

But they were noble savages, so much more advanced than the depraved Europeans!


10 posted on 08/23/2006 9:59:04 AM PDT by Constitution Day (Down With Half-Assery!)
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To: nickcarraway
I've never seen a good recipe for conquistidor.

There are different ones for male and female.

Cause sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.

11 posted on 08/23/2006 9:59:56 AM PDT by N. Theknow ((Kennedys - Can't drive, can't fly, can't ski, can't skipper a boat - But they know what's best.))
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To: Marius3188
<tree-hugging liberal>Oh, but the indigenous native pipples were so peaceful and completely at one with the environment! It must have been the eeeville white European occupying oppressors who provoked them.</tree-hugging liberal>
12 posted on 08/23/2006 10:00:05 AM PDT by Alouette (Psalms of the Day: 140-144)
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To: Marius3188

"Some pregnant women in the group had their unborn babies stabbed inside their bellies as part of the ritual."

America worships the same pagan gods today.


13 posted on 08/23/2006 10:00:09 AM PDT by FreedomProtector
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To: Constitution Day

Oh! The humanity!


14 posted on 08/23/2006 10:00:40 AM PDT by MrEdd (More cheep than a flock of baby chickens.)
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To: Marius3188

Well of course they cooked them first- boiling kills off the smallpox, don't you know.


15 posted on 08/23/2006 10:00:48 AM PDT by brothers4thID (Being lectured by Ted Kennedy on ethics is not unlike being lectured on dating protocol by Ted Bundy)
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To: nickcarraway
I've never seen a good recipe for conquistidor.

I've heard they taste just like chicken.

16 posted on 08/23/2006 10:01:13 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: pikachu
They would serve the cooked Spaniards on their own armor which was the first time a Mexican waiter said, 'Careful, the plate is hot'.

LOL!!

17 posted on 08/23/2006 10:02:44 AM PDT by Constitution Day (Down With Half-Assery!)
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To: RexBeach

It sounds like ethnic cleansing, noble savage-style.


18 posted on 08/23/2006 10:03:41 AM PDT by xroadie
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To: FreedomProtector

"Some pregnant women in the group had their unborn babies stabbed inside their bellies as part of the ritual."

America worships the same pagan gods today.

I give you a 9.9 out of 10.0 for that comment....


19 posted on 08/23/2006 10:04:25 AM PDT by 12th_Monkey
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To: Marius3188; blam; FairOpinion; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 24Karet; 3AngelaD; ...
And for dessert, lady fingers! Thanks Marius3188.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

20 posted on 08/23/2006 10:04:36 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (updated my FR profile on Thursday, August 10, 2006. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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