Posted on 04/18/2007 6:52:55 PM PDT by Dallas59
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Archeologists have discovered the remains of two dozen children in Mexico apparently sacrificed by priests who slashed their throats and offered their blood to the rain god Tlaloc, researchers said Tuesday.
The discovery at a former Toltec settlement indicates child sacrifice predated the Aztecs, an advanced civilization conquered by the Spain in the 16th century and was fairly commonplace.
Dating to about AD 950 to 1150, the bones of the children were found on the outskirts of the Toltec archeological zone Tula, said Luis Gamboa, an archeologist for the National Institute of Anthropology and History. The sacrificed children ranged from age five to about 15.
"They had some incisions on the vertebrae that suggested they had used some sort of (stone) to cut their throats, not so much to cut off their heads but rather, it appears, to cut the jugular and bleed them to death," Gamboa said.
The bodies were all found in a single four-metre-square pit in excavations that began in early March on the grounds of a police station just outside the archeological site, about 70 kilometres north of Mexico City.
All were laid out in the same position - facing east - around a shrine to Tlaloc, leading archeologists to believe "this was something collective, done simultaneously," in a single ritual, Gamboa said.
"It was one of the many neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the ceremonial centre and what we found was part of daily life," Gamboa said.
Accounts written by Spanish priests soon after the 1521 conquest indicated the Aztecs sacrificed children and archeologists have found the remains of some Aztec child victims. The Toltecs are believed to have dominated central Mexico between the 10th and 12th centuries, before the Aztecs rose to prominence.
The Aztecs believed sacrificed children would become the servants of Tlaloc and bring more rain, said archeologist Victor Arribalzaga, who is excavating a temple to Tlaloc on a mountain on the eastern outskirts of Mexico City.
Children who cried a lot were especially selected as sacrifice victims, as were those that bore the "sign" of Tlaloc: a double crown in their hair.
"The priests entered a pit, which we have located, and they sacrificed the children," he said, quoting a 16th-century Spanish account written about events at the temple.
"Then the priest came out with the blood of the children and smeared it on the idols and then on the rulers and then on the people at large," Arribalzaga said.
"It was like when a priest scatters holy water."
While Arribalzaga has yet to find remains of the victims at the temple site, he said he expects to do so when excavations expand.
Actually, the Catholic Priest Bartolome De Las Casas said in 1556, that it exhibited more how much they LOVED their ‘god’ and in this way were willing to show great respect. His spin on it was that it showed how enamored with their deities, and not how little they cared for the little ones. Uhmnnnn.
Thread hijack coming in 5, 4, 3...
Old Planned Parenthood office perhaps?
They were just late term abortions.
They “worshiped” these gods to GET something - for themselves.
Pure idolatry.
“...Dating to about AD 950 to 1150...”
You guys, this is old news...
“You guys, this is old news...”
Better pull it from “Breaking”.
Breaking News??????
I mean, crap, how long ago did this happen?...Geeez...
Apparently the Aztecs didn’t have enough conservatives on their Supreme Court to end the practice !!!
It is wrong to judge other cultures < /sarc>
This is not news. And by the way Celts, Romans, and other Europeans routinely sacrificed people as well. In 1342 when Gediminas, Grand Duke of Lithuania (an ancestor of nearly all subsequent European royalty), died, he was accompanied to the afterlife by some servants and slaves.
Kinda makes Cortez look pretty good, doesn’t it?
With a title like that, it was just too easy.
In response to your comment, before the advent of Christianity, Europe also murdered their sons and daughters.
And Americans and others do so today--it's just called abortion now.
One of the earliest Europeans to visit the Maya ruins thought that the Maya glyphs were Carthaginian writing. Maybe the Carthaginians got to Mexico after all.
Cortez butchered thousands and thousands.
Whatever nonsense this is supposed to mean, it was the Catholic Church that converted 9 million Aztecs and other tribes to Christianity.
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