Such a display is called a tzompantli, and was meant to hold the freshly severed heads of people chosen for human sacrifice.
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Raul Barrera, the lead archaeologist on the dig at the NIAH, told reporters the rack could have been as long 112 feet and been as wide as 40 feet, Reuters reported.
Archaeologists in Mexico have unearthed an Aztec skull rack, or tzompantli, which is exactly what it sounds like it is – a scaffolding-like structure of rods and poles used to publicly display human skulls, those of war captives and sacrificial victims.
“But it is very likely that this one is the main Tzompantli of Tenochtitlan (the Aztec capital located in what is now Mexico City)”.
So far, 35 skulls have been found on the 112-foot-long, 40-foot-wide rack.
Eduardo Matos, an archaeologist at the National Institute of Anthropology and History, suggested the skull rack in Mexico City was “a show of might” by the Aztecs. However institute archaeologists stated the most recent discovery was totally different. Part of the platform where the heads were displayed was made of rows of skulls mortared together roughly in a circle.
The rack of skulls was found on the western side of what was once the Templo Mayor complex in Tenochtitlan, in modern Mexico City. All of the skulls have been organized to look inward towards the middle of the circle, however specialists do not know what was on the middle.
Because the house under which the platform and tzompantli were found was historically significant itself, archaeologists had to work in narrow wells six beneath floor level, suspended on a platform on their stomachs.
Periodic excavations carried out since 1914 steered a ceremonial website was situated close to the location. “With more study, we expect to learn that many of these skulls belong to [Aztec] enemies, who were captured, sacrificed and decapitated in order to be displayed there”. He also estimated it was built some time between 1485 and 1502.
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Researchers say the existence of this specific skull rack is referenced in ancient texts, found in the illustrations of the Codex Duran and Codices Matritenses – the historical recordings of the Dominican friar, Diego Duran, and the scientific records of Franciscan Friar Bernardino de Sahagun’s, respectively.
