Weapons and Rituals of the Ancient Aztecs The Aztecs were a culture that has been surrounded in mystery and who seemed far more advanced than their counterparts. The technology, their building skills have boggled the science and archeology world for centuries. We will be discussing the blood sacrifices and rituals celebrated by the Aztecs and what their possible meanings are. The Aztecs were the largest civilization to ever rule Mesoamerica. Archaeology and modern science are now shedding new light on the blood rituals they practiced. Join host Josh Bernstein as he travels to Mexico City to investigate and use forensic science to examine the bones of sacrificial rituals. Next he’ll try his hand at the weapons of the Aztecs, sample the potions of the priests and even cut through flesh using the technology of the ancients. Though the human sacrifice is the most talked about, there were actually many types of sacrifices in the empire. The people believed that they owed a blood-debt to the gods. They wanted to avert disaster by paying the endless debt. Blood was a common theme – the sacrifice that the gods required (see Aztec religion for more on Aztec sacrifice). So, animals would be sacrificed, as well as humans. Also, there was ritual blood-letting, where people would cut themselves to offer their blood to the gods. Human Sacrifices Human sacrifice was practised to some extent by many peoples in Mesoamerica (and for that matter, around the world) for many centuries. But it was the Aztec empire that really took the ritual to new heights. How many people were sacrificed by the Aztecs? We don’t know how many were sacrificed over the years – it’s possible that some accounts are exaggerated – but it was probably thousands each year – tens of thousands or more all together. Some estimates claim 20,000 a year. The Aztecs had 18 months in one cycle, and for each of the 18 months there was ritual sacrifice. The victim would be painted as a part of the ritual, they would be placed on a slab where their heart would be removed and held up to the sun. The body would be thrown down the stairs of the temple/pyramid. The body would be disposed of in various ways, such as feeding animals at the zoo or putting on display (the heads). There are some accounts of cannibalism, but it’s uncertain if this was practised to any great extent. There were other ways that humans would be sacrificed – shot with arrows, drowned, burned, or otherwise mutilated. Killing in a fight (like the Roman gladiators) also took place. Both the empire’s own people, and their enemies were sacrificed. The warriors were often involved in a special ritual war called a xochiyaoyotl (or flower war/flowery war). The object was not to gain territory or kill the enemy, but to capture them as food for the gods. Both sides of the battle were required to fight, and they usually were willing participants. The people would be captured instead of killed, and then sacrificed. Human sacrifice was a religious practice characteristic of pre-Columbian Aztec civilization, as well as of other Mesoamerican civilizations like the Maya and the Zapotec. The extent of the practice is debated by modern scholars. Spanish explorers, soldiers and clergy who had contact with the Aztecs between 1517, when an expedition from Cuba first explored the Yucatan, and 1521, when Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, made observations of and wrote reports about the practice of human sacrifice. For example, Bernal Díaz's The Conquest of New Spain includes eyewitness accounts of human sacrifices as well as descriptions of the remains of sacrificial victims. In addition, there are a number of second-hand accounts of human sacrifices written by Spanish friars that relate the testimony of native eyewitnesses. The literary accounts have been supported by archeological research. Since the late 1970s, excavations of the offerings in the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan, Teotihuacán's Pyramid of the Moon, and other archaeological sites, have provided physical evidence of human sacrifice among the Mesoamerican peoples. A wide variety of explanations and interpretations of the Aztec practice of human sacrifice have been proposed by modern scholars. Most scholars of Pre-Columbian civilization see human sacrifice among the Aztecs as a part of the long cultural tradition of human sacrifice in Mesoamerica.

• published: 25 Nov 2014
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