Police found 150 skulls at a “crime scene” in Mexico. It seems the victims, mostly women, were ritually decapitated over 1,000 years ago.

When Mexican police discovered a pile of about 150 skulls in a cave close to the Guatemalan border, they thought they were taking a look at a criminal offense scene, and took the bones to the state capital.

It turns out it was a really chilly case.

It took a decade of tests and analysis to determine the skulls had been from sacrificial victims killed between A.D. 900 and 1200, the Nationwide Institute of Anthropology and Historical past mentioned Wednesday.

"Believing they were looking at a criminal offense scene, investigators collected the bones and began analyzing them in Tuxtla Gutierrez," the state capital, the institute, often called INAH, stated in a statement.

The police in 2012 weren't being stupid; the border space around the city of Frontera Comalapa in southern Chiapas state has long been tormented by violence and immigrant trafficking. And pre-Hispanic cranium piles in Mexico often present a gap bashed by way of either side of every cranium, and have been usually present in ceremonial plazas, not caves.

But consultants said Wednesday the victims within the cave had in all probability been ritually decapitated and the skulls placed on show on a form of trophy rack often known as a "tzompantli." Spanish conquistadores wrote about seeing such racks within the 1520s, and a few Spaniards' heads even wound up on them.

While often strung on wooden poles using holes bashed by way of them - the frequent observe among the Aztecs and different cultures - experts say the cave skulls could have rested atop poles, fairly than being strung on them.

Interestingly, there have been extra females than males among the many victims, and none of them had any teeth.

In gentle of the cave experience, archaeologist Javier Montes de Paz mentioned individuals should in all probability name archaeologists, not police.

"When individuals find something that may very well be in an archaeological context, don't contact it and notify native authorities or immediately the INAH," he said.

In 2015, archaeologists found the principle trophy rack of sacrificed human skulls at Mexico City's Templo Mayor Aztec destroy site.

That very same 12 months, artifacts discovered at the Zultepec-Tecoaque smash site revealed evidence from when lots of of individuals in a Spanish-led convoy have been captured, sacrificed and apparently eaten.

A 2016 research discovered that in societies where social hierarchies had been taking form, ritual human sacrifices focused poor individuals, helping the powerful control the decrease classes and hold them in their place.

Trending News