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12-04-2004, 08:25 AM
Mexican tomb reveals gruesome human sacrifice
18:46 03 December 04
NewScientist.com news service
Evidence of a grisly human sacrifice and a complex military infrastructure has emerged from an excavation of the ruins of a pyramid in the 2000-year-old city of Teotihuacan in Mexico.
A vault containing 12 bodies, ten of which had been decapitated, along with the remains of pumas, wolves and eagles were discovered at the city's central structure, the Pyramid of the Moon.
"What we have found in this excavation suggests that a certain kind of mortuary ritual took place inside the tomb before it was filled in," says Saburo Sugiyama of the University of Japan, in Aichi, who coordinated the archaeological dig with Ruben Cabrera of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History.
"It is hard to believe that the ritual consisted of clean symbolic performances," Sugiyama adds. "It is most likely that the ceremony created a horrible scene of bloodshed with sacrificed people and animals."
More on this Story (http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996756)
18:46 03 December 04
NewScientist.com news service
Evidence of a grisly human sacrifice and a complex military infrastructure has emerged from an excavation of the ruins of a pyramid in the 2000-year-old city of Teotihuacan in Mexico.
A vault containing 12 bodies, ten of which had been decapitated, along with the remains of pumas, wolves and eagles were discovered at the city's central structure, the Pyramid of the Moon.
"What we have found in this excavation suggests that a certain kind of mortuary ritual took place inside the tomb before it was filled in," says Saburo Sugiyama of the University of Japan, in Aichi, who coordinated the archaeological dig with Ruben Cabrera of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History.
"It is hard to believe that the ritual consisted of clean symbolic performances," Sugiyama adds. "It is most likely that the ceremony created a horrible scene of bloodshed with sacrificed people and animals."
More on this Story (http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996756)