Archaeologists Unearth a 500-Year-Old Tower of Skulls — and Another Gruesome Aztec Mystery

The 400 Spanish conquistadors who walked into the Aztec capital in the 16th century had conquest and new-world riches on their minds, but they were initially welcomed as friends. From that peaceful vantage point, they were amazed by the splendor of the people of Tenochtitlan — and their cannibalistic brutality.

They found temples soaked with blood and human hearts being burned in ceramic braziers, according to the Archaeological Institute of America . . .

The conquistadors and the Spaniards who followed them wrote of the victims of human sacrifices rolling down the steps of the temple, where they were dismembered, then eaten in a stew with chilies and tomatoes.

But one thing terrified the European newcomers more than almost anything: A rack of human skulls that towered over one corner of the temple to Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of the sun, war and human sacrifice. (Read more from “Archaeologists Unearth a 500-Year-Old Tower of Skulls — and Another Gruesome Aztec Mystery” HERE)

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