Archaeologists discover a gruesome tower of skulls in Mexico City

THE Aztecs were not gracious victors. Their prisoners of war were frequently used for human sacrifice, as part of spectacles in which their hearts would be ripped from their bodies by priests, to be offered, still beating, to the gods. Their heads fared no better, usually ending up in a kind of skull wall, called a tzompantli in Nahuatl, the Aztec language. In its typical form it consisted of a platform, with posts connected by crossbeams onto which skulls would be threaded. Tzompantlis were generally placed in front of temples, so that friend and foe alike would be awed by the state’s power.

In 2015 archaeologists identified the Huey (Great) Tzompantli, a particularly impressive version. It stood near the main temple of Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital on whose remains Hernán Cortés founded Mexico City after the Spanish conquest in 1521. As the digging season wrapped up last month, researchers announced their newest discovery: a gruesome, circular tower of skulls, which stood at one end of the 34-metre (100-foot) platform. It is thought to be one of two such towers cited in an account of the Huey Tzompantli by Andrés de Tapia, who fought alongside Cortés.