guardian | Archaeologists say they have have found the main trophy rack of sacrificed human skulls at Mexico City’s Templo Mayor Aztec ruin site.
Racks known as “tzompantli” were where the Aztecs displayed the
severed heads of sacrifice victims on wooden poles pushed through the
sides of the skull. The poles were suspended horizontally on vertical
posts.
Eduardo Matos, an archaeologist at the National Institute of
Anthropology and History, suggested the skull rack in Mexico City “was a
show of might” by the Aztecs. Friends and even enemies were invited
into the city, precisely to be cowed by the grisly display of heads in
various stages of decomposition.
Paintings and written descriptions from the early colonial period
showed descriptions of such racks. But institute archaeologists said the
newest discovery was different.
Part of the platform where the heads were displayed was made of rows
of skulls mortared together roughly in a circle, around a seemingly
empty space in the middle. All the skulls were arranged to look inward
toward the centre of the circle, but experts don’t know what was at the
centre.
