ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND CHILD SACRIFICE
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[ July 23rd 2005 ]

Mexican archaeologists excavating an Aztec temple at Mexico City's Templo Mayor ruins have unearthed a rare child sacrifice to the war god, a deity normally honoured with the hearts or skulls of adult warriors, reports Associated Press.

Archaeologist Ximena Chavez said Friday there was no reference to child sacrifices to the war god Huitzilopochtli in accounts written by the Spaniards after the 1521 Conquest, showing the need for exhaustive digs to discover more about the long-controversial subject, according to AP.

"We are finding things here that writers of the earliest accounts did not mention, possibly because they were writing about things they didn't personally witness," said Chavez, of the National Institute of History and Anthropology.

"This child is unique," said Chavez, "because it is the first child dedicated to Huitzilopochtli." Warriors captured during battles with opposing cities were often sacrificed to the war god; in contrast, children have sometimes been found sacrificed to Tlaloc, the rain god."

In recent years archaeologists have found mounting physical evidence that corroborates the Spanish accounts of human sacrifices in substance, but which indicates that some Spanish accounts exaggerated the number of victims.