Since many Pre-Columbian cultures did not have alphabets, images were used as a way to express their secular and religious views, to explain their philosophy and to communicate. Great civilizations ruled this earth, from Olmec, Aztec, and Maya in Mesoamerica, to the Inca in the South and each of these cultures left a specific mark in the history of art. Verano says that these battles provided an important venue for young Aztec warriors to gain social status by bringing home a gaggle of captives, some of whom would ultimately be sacrificed.Art in the Americas prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the early 16th century was as diverse as the can be imagined. Instead of engaging in violent battles to the death, the Aztecs and Tlaxcalans agreed to fight so-called “Flower Wars,” ceremonial battles in which the goal was to capture, not kill, as many enemy combatants as possible. The only remaining holdout was the neighboring city-state of Tlaxcala to the east. By the late 15th century, the Aztecs had won control over large swaths of central and southern Mexico. The nature of warfare during the height of Aztec power was also unique. To give your heart to Huitzilopochtli was a tremendous honor and a guaranteed ticket to a blessed afterlife fighting in the sun god’s army against the forces of darkness. Just look at the gladiator battles of Imperial Rome or the mass burials of servants and captives alongside Egyptian pharaohs and Chinese kings.Īlso, as hard as it is to imagine, many captured soldiers, slaves and Aztec citizens went willingly to the sacrificial altar. It’s a particularly effective method of intimidating rivals and keeping your own people in line. Verano says that across history and cultures, the rise of ritual human sacrifice often coincides with the emergence of complex societies and social stratification. DNA tests of recovered victims from the Templo Mayor site show that the vast majority of those sacrificed were outsiders, likely enemy soldiers or slaves. The ritual killing of war captives and the large-scale displaying of skulls were visceral reminders of the strength of the empire and the extent of its dominion. Human sacrifice also served another purpose in the expanding Aztec empire of the 15th and 16th centuries: intimidation. The keep the sun moving across the sky and preserve their very lives, the Aztecs had to feed Huitzilopochtli with human hearts and blood. According to Aztec cosmology, the sun god Huitzilopochtli was waging a constant war against darkness, and if the darkness won, the world would end. The rationale for Aztec human sacrifice was, first and foremost, a matter of survival. Large and small human sacrifices would be made throughout the year to coincide with important calendar dates, he explains, to dedicate temples, to reverse drought and famine, and more.Īn Aztec priest removing a man's heart during a sacrificial ritual, offering it to the god Huitzilopochtli. “It was a deeply serious and important thing for them,” says Verano. Why did they carry out such brutal ceremonies? John Verano, an anthropology professor at Tulane University, explains the practice held spiritual significance for the Aztecs. While it's true that the Spanish undoubtedly inflated their figures-Spanish historian Fray Diego de Durán reported that 80,400 men, women and children were sacrificed for the inauguration of the Templo Mayor under a previous Aztec emperor-evidence is mounting that the gruesome scenes illustrated in Spanish texts, and preserved in temple murals and stone carvings, are true. But in 20, archeologists working at the Templo Mayor excavation site in Mexico City discovered proof of widespread human sacrifice among the Aztecs-none other than the very skull towers and skull racks that conquistadors had described in their accounts. Reading these accounts hundreds of years later, many historians dismissed the 16th-century reports as wildly exaggerated propaganda meant to justify the murder of Aztec emperor Moctezuma, the ruthless destruction of Tenochtitlán and the enslavement of its people.
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