Headless Bodies Found at Mysterious Mexico Pyramid

By Brian Winter

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The discovery of a tomb filled with decapitated bodies suggests Mexico's 2,000 year-old "Pyramid of the Moon" may have been the site of horrifically gory sacrifices, archeologists said on Thursday.


The tomb at Teotihuacan, the first major city built in the Americas, whose origins are one of history's great mysteries, also held the bound carcasses of eagles, dogs and other animals.

"It is hard to believe that the ritual consisted of clean, symbolic performances -- it is most likely that the ceremony created a horrible scene of bloodshed with sacrificed people and animals," said Saburo Sugiyama, one of the scientists leading the ongoing dig.

"Whether the victims and animals were killed at the site or a nearby place, this foundation ritual must have been one of the most terrifying acts recorded archeologically in Mesoamerica."

Of the 12 human bodies found, 10 were decapitated and then tossed, rather than arranged, on one side of the burial site. The two other bodies were richly ornamented with beads and a necklace made of imitation human jaws.

The Aztecs came across Teotihuacan's towering stone pyramids in about 1500 A.D., centuries after the city was torched and abandoned. It is not known what language its inhabitants spoke, but the Aztecs named it "The Place Where Men Become Gods," believing it was a divine site.

A major tourist site, it lies about 35 miles northeast of Mexico City.

After 200 years of excavations, archeologists are still largely in the dark about the origins of the city, which is believed to have housed 200,000 people at its peak in 500 A.D. -- rivaling Shakespeare's London, but a millennium earlier.

Sugiyama said the nearly complete excavation indicates the Pyramid of the Moon was significant to its builders as a site for celebrating state power through ceremony and sacrifice.

The sacrifices were carried out during the expansion of one of the city's major monuments, suggesting the government wanted to symbolize growing sacred political power.

"Contrary to some past interpretation, militarism was apparently central to the city's culture," the excavation team said in a statement.

The master-planned city-state collapsed around 700 A.D., an event as mysterious as its formation.

It was the site of a modern-day controversy earlier this year when protesters fought and lost a battle to keep the Mexican unit of retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. from building a new store a half-mile away.

ok, did you copy paste this?

Militarism has always been the Aztecs' downfall. Internal strife and external aggression combined to cause a complete collapse of their culture. All that remains today of their civilization is a few slowly decaying stone buildings and perhaps a piece of pottery or two.

Should teach us something today, eh?

im not so surprised at this...seeing as almost every ancient race performed sacrifical rituals...the most civilised country nowadays had sacrificals and other sickening rituals to their gods, take the modern greeks for example, they are one of the worlds most friendly and civilized nations, but back in the ol' days, they had one of the most gruesome set of rituals towards their many many gods...interesting though

hrm ... shaldengeki, i'm not sure i agree with you there. i would say that the spanish led to thier downfall. hernando cortes slaughtered them all the second time he came to the aztecs (he was defeated the first time around). after he defeated them, he destroyed every remnant of their civilisation. who knows, if cortes did not defeat them the second time our current world history may have been very different ... what if the central american peoples banded together to repel the conquistoders?

hrm...

cheers
dr. hashbang

Yes, Hashbang has it right. Cortes and the Spanish basically single-handidly overthrew the Aztec empire. Sure, the empire itself had its own internal problems, but nothing like a band of manipulating murderers.

Hashbang, your ponderings have been written about in a very interesting book called Pastwatch (Orson Scott Card). While it doesn't deal with Cortes specifically, it does deal with modifying Columbus' discovery (which in effect negates Cortes' exploration and eventual slaughter of the Aztecs). This book is one of my favorites, and just thinking about it makes me want to reread it.

i've heard some weirder stuffs, but this is freaky. I have to check out some pictures of these things. You know where i could find them???

all it might be is someone runing around during night near the pyramids cutin peoples heads off and throwin them into the ocean or somthing or they might be keepin the heads somewhere safe

Hmm, seems to me that some cults (occults, whatever) can make some pretty gruesom sacrifices...

Now, it seems perfectly logical that it could, and is, and was, people from long ago... All I'm saying, is that that stuff still happends today, I think, I don't join cults just to see what they do. They seem pretty "strong" in mexico, and cuba I think has also been said? Anyway, just a thought. Interesting find.
Oh, something else, the Romans for all their "civilized"ness still had gladiators which weren't quite as bad as just random chopping off of heads.

Well, if people used to believe that giving a sacrifice to their Gods helped, then they really done it, like they were living without knowing a lot about nature and science, if nature did something, like a storm or earthquake stroke, they could of think that the Gods made this, because they did not get enough sacrifice. All those cults are quite logical if you think like people used to think in the ancient times.

One strange thing, that all civilizations around the world were building pyramids and making mummies in some way, history has a lot of strange things, I like history lessons and to know more about and get deeper, you can learn a lot by watching channels like Discovery, History and etc.

People, who are in cults and needs to sacrifice - I think they are brainwashed and some of them really needs to get a "live" and maybe even go to psychologists.. to get good "normal" friends is another good alternative.