Are human sacrifices occurring on the Aztec Sun Stones just a fiction from old adventure movies?
Or is there real history to it? Keep watching to learn what really happened, and what didn't.
Human belief systems have long been used as a justification for killing people.
There is seemingly something in the human condition which certain ideologies can exploit,
making human death feel like a necessary means to an end,
even as most outsiders to that ideology look on with horror.
The Aztec people of ancient Mexico are an example. Their polytheistic religion placed
a heavy emphasis on the sun god, Tonatiuh, whom they saw as the god who provided "light, warmth,
and life." Because the sun was, and is, essential for maintaining life on earth, and because the
Aztecs believed that the sun god could get angry and leave them high and dry, the Aztecs felt they
needed to keep Tonatiuh happy. And, simply put, the way to do that was to keep him fed.
"Shut up about the sun! Shut up about the sun!”
The Aztecs believed in a few sun gods prior to Tonatiuh, but he was the fifth incarnation.
He was regarded as not easily pleased and less than benevolent. To keep this god happy,
human sacrifice was essential in ensuring he,
in the form of the sun, would come back every day. In fact, one of the reasons for this necessity was
actually to honor the sun god for what were seen as sacrifices he had made in order for
humanity to thrive, therefore, his nourishment required a blood and flesh sacrifice in return.
For the Aztecs, a Mesoamerican civilization that rose to domination from 1345 through the 1520s
until the Spanish colonized, human sacrifice was necessary to keep the world from coming to an end.
That was integral to their belief system. As noted by World History Encyclopedia,
"[I]t is important to remember that for the Aztecs the act of sacrifice - of which human sacrifice
was only a part - was a strictly ritualized process which gave the highest possible honor
to the gods and was regarded as a necessity to ensure mankind's continued prosperity."
Sacrifice included getting pretty messy with blood-spilling, heart removal,
burning, and some dismembering, and often burned flesh or blood would be put on or poured onto
idols of the gods so they could receive the offerings directly. Because the Aztecs were
so fervent about feeding their fickle gods, it is believed that the Aztec Sun Stone, which was
discovered by Mexican workers in 1790 buried in the ground of Mexico City's Zocalo, a public
square in the heart of the city, was an altar for sacrifice. The Sun Stone, an Aztec calendar, had
been buried in that location by the contemptuous Spanish conquerors, according to Wired.
Susan Milbrath, the Latin American art and archaeology curator at the Florida Museum of
Natural History, said the 12-foot-wide, three-foot-thick, hand-carved disc
now called the Aztec Sun Stone was likely used for the "most treasured" sacrificial captives
because Tonatiuh's face seems to be "the heart" of the stone. As Milbrath explained,
"That almost made it like a stage for public ritual."
These sacrifices were most often unfortunate captives of war,
and of those, the ones who were the best-looking or fought the hardest and bravest made the best
offerings to the Aztec gods. However, sometimes a losing team in ritual ball-games and even
children would be sacrificed. At other times, a gladiator-style display might be staged,
with the chosen victim made to fight before ultimately dying by sacrifice anyway.
Though that may sound harsh to modern humans, the Aztecs were a sophisticated civilization,
with highly developed systems of agriculture, socialization, and an understanding of astronomy.
Wired reported that the Sun Stone took 52 years to carve, from the year 1427 to 1479,
and it encompasses dual calendars used by the Aztecs, both agricultural and ritual
time-keeping methods. The timing of the sacrifices was decided by the calendar,
but its main purpose was not so much for time-keeping. Rather, the Sun Stone's
primary use was to sacrifice people on, where Tonatiuh could be directly appeased.
While ritual human sacrifice is somewhat of an alien practice in modern civilizations,
it's clear that the Aztecs put a great deal of thought and effort into the rituals,
believing it was necessary to appease their gods, who were closely aligned with nature. Today,
we understand nature differently, but we are still at a loss for how to control it. For the Aztecs,
human sacrifice was likely a futile effort to have some control over the whims of nature.
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