The butchered rest of 20 untested men at aMayapyramid in southerly Mexico suggest that the site may have been a monument to the forcefulness of death . Thesacrificial victimswere stick in two distinct graves that may have been dig up to 1,200 years apart , suggesting that the macabre monument probably serve the darker Maya deities for many century .
accord to researchers from Mexico ’s National Institute of Anthropology and History ( INAH ) , the mode in which the victims were behead offer clear grounds that the body structure was associated with death and the gods of the underworld . It ’s think that the unfortunate someone were deprived of their heads as a means of consecrating the pyramid and cement its kinship with the afterlife .
Located at the Moral - Reforma archaeological site in the Yucatan Peninsula , the terrifying Pyramids of Egypt – known by the disproportionately grim name Structure 18 – was most in all probability built in level , with human offering required to sanctify each additional completed section . The two flock executions are therefore thought to relate to key events in the temple’sconstruction .
The first of these is believed to date back to the Late Preclassic period , which lasted from around 300 BCE to 250 CE . Though the accurate old age of the skeletons has not yet been identified , the presence of 567 company material offerings such as beaded gaud , projectile point , and pearl phonograph needle help to place the stiff within this general timeframe .
Consisting of seven freestanding burials , this elder cache contains the bones of at least 12victims , some of which appear to have been set up in a sitting placement immediately after death while others were belike relocated to the temple after first being buried elsewhere . As a result , many of these skeletons are not anatomically logical .
A second series of 13 burials dating to the Late Classic time period – which lasted from 600 to 900 cerium – was also discovered at the site . “ Within these 13 burials we counted eight individuals who must have been decapitated and had part of their bodies dismembered and placed separately in rules of order to consecrate the temple , ” explained research coordinator Francisco Apolinar Cuevas Reyes in astatement .
Both mortuary deposits were made up of vernal grownup males displaying modifications to the conformation of their skulls . harmonise to Cuevas Reyes , this “ forcible characteristic was intentionally achieved via the splinting of the head at a unseasoned long time because it elevated the status of these person in pre - Columbian Maya society . too , in two of the individuals from the Late Classic period we observe dental modifications through filing and jade encrusting of the front tooth . ”
The investigator say that all conclusion drawn from these discoveries are preliminary , and excavation of the Moral - Reforma is currently ongoing as archaeologists attempt to piece together the gory details of what go on at the deathly pyramid .
