Posted on 06/13/2007 8:02:55 AM PDT by NYer
The skeletons of two dozen children killed in an ancient mass sacrifice have been found in a tomb at a construction site in Mexico.
The find reveals new details about the ancient Toltec civilization and adds to an ongoing debate over ritualistic killing in historic Mesoamerica.
Construction crews unearthed the burial chamber this spring near the town of Tula, the ancient Toltec capital, 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Mexico City (see Mexico map).
The chamber contained 24 skeletons of children believed to have been sacrificed between A.D. 950 and 1150, according to Luis Gamboa, an archaeologist at Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History.
All but one of the children were between 5 to 15 years of age, and they were likely killed as an offering to the Toltec rain god Tlaloc, Gamboa said.
The Toltec, a pre-Aztec civilization that thrived from the 10th to 12th centuries, had not been previously thought to have sacrificed children.
But the ritualistic placement of the skeletons, cut marks on bones, and the presence of a figurine of Tlaloc led Gamboa to conclude the children had been sacrificed to bring rain.
"To try and explain why there are 24 bodies grouped in the same place, well, the only way is to think that there was a human sacrifice," Gamboa told the Reuters news agency.
"You can see evidence of incisions, which make us think they possibly used sharp-edged instruments to decapitate them."
Elaborate Burials
The skeletons were each found in a seated position looking east to face the sunrise, Gamboa said.
Several artifacts were also found around the bodies, some of which suggest that the children had been brought in from another region, he added.
"We believe that based on the comparison of archaeological materials that accompanied the human burials," Gamboa told National Geographic News.
In particular, he said, his team discovered some vessels that bore markings "similar to those found in the southern region of the Basin of Mexico," he said.
Two of the children also appear to have been given especially elaborate burials, based on the quality of vessels and other artifacts found nearby, including turquoise that may have originated in the present-day southwestern United States.
Gamboa's discovery requires some important changes to the time line of Mesoamerican history, said Traci Ardren, an archaeologist at University of Miami, who was not involved in the research.
"This new discovery at Tula pushes back the evidence for a relationship between child sacrifice and the [appeasement] of the rain god Tlaloc at least 300 years," she said.
Evidence suggests the children sacrificed to Tlaloc were in very poor health when they died and that the sacrifices were not punitive, she added.
Children of "young age and greater purity" were "more powerful mechanisms for the petitions of the living," Ardren said.
Signs of sacrifice are not unique at this time and place, noted Robert Carmack, an anthropologist at the University of Albany, but Gamboa's findings demonstrate the influence that the Toltec had in the region.
"[Cultures during this] period in Central Mexico, especially the Aztecs, were profoundly influenced by the Toltecs, so the existence of Toltec child sacrifice is not at all surprising," he said.
Carmack said early Toltec influence was also pervasive in the highlands of what is now Guatemala, and Maya documents from the region refer to child sacrifice.
(See a video about Maya violence in the movie Apocalypto.)
"There is sound evidence of the existence of child sacrifice there, although perhaps not on a grand scale," he said.
Ping!
Look 5 posts ahead of you.
what is this supposed to mean? That we shouldn't be judgemental about a culture who beheads 24 children to appease a fickle rain-god?
I didn’t realize Planned Parenthood has been around that long.
And the words "Planned Parenthood" were over the door.
Al-Queda in the new world, that far back?
Their god wanted them to sacrifice the ones who have no say over who is sacrificed...funny how that worked all over the world.
That religion is alive and well, today—using abortion clinics as their alters...
A feeble attempt by the MSM to link the slaughter of 24 sick children 1000 years ago with the contemporary notion of euthanasia. It was barbaric then; nothing has changed.
The earliest Planned Parenthood Center
We still have this practice in modern times. Just because our bloodthirsty barbarians wear a white coat and are called “Doctor” doesn’t make them any less a barbarian.
I think this has less to do with excusing euthanasia than with preserving multiculturalism. They want to make the sacrificers somehow seem nicer and kinder than they actually were.
The fact is that most, if not all, of the Indians living in South America before the age of exploration seem to have been cruel and brutal. It's not a racial thing; other people have been cruel and brutal too. The Phoenicians, who otherwise had a high trading and exploring civilization, sacrificed their first-born children to Baal Moloch, for instance.
But the inconvenient fact for multiculturalism is that when Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared and millions of Indians were converted to Christianity, there was a vast improvement in their culture. South American Indian culture is still pretty rough, and constantly roiled by populists and Marxists who play on their resentments, but inconceivably better than it was before their conversion from the old religions. But no true multiculturalist can admit that.
Post-birth abortions to appease the Women’s Libbers of that day.
Ancient Tomb Found in Mexico Reveals Mass Child Sacrifice (At least they didn’t throw theirs away?)
National Geographic | 6-12-07 | Kelly Hearn
Posted on 06/13/2007 10:55:30 AM EDT by Bladerunnuh
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1849516/posts
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)
Their god wanted them to sacrifice the ones who have no say over who is sacrificed...funny how that worked all over the world.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Yep, them gods was shore nuff dependable, don’t think I ever heered tell o’ one that told the priest to cut his own danged throat!
Maybe children weren’t qualified for foodstamps or additional welfare to parents and therefore considered useless eaters.
Sad though.
There was never any question about this - until now. The Spanish were horrified by the Indian sacrifices and ritual cannibalism and reported on it at great length. Even some of the Indians appear to have been a little horrified, and it is certainly one of the things that accounted for the rapid spread of Christianity in Mexico and Indian lands.
One of my kids went to high school in California in the early 80s and brought home a text book that said that the Aztecs were way ahead of Europeans in everything and that Europeans destroyed a kind, intelligent and peace-loving culture...yuck! So the Aztecs had a calendar. Many other peoples did, too, but by that time, Christianity and Judaism had educated them out of offering up their babies to placate the wrathful gods. Not to mention the fact that the Aztecs were so brutal that other Indian groups actually helped the Spanish take them down.
One of the best remarks about missionary activity I ever heard was someone who said, about missionary activity to an indigenous group in the Pacific Islands, “well, it delivered them from fear.” Primitive pre-Christian peoples live in fear of the world around them, and Christianity delivers them from that fear.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.