It seemed it would be such an easy life in Ancient Mexico, but alas, there was "Death by strangulation, decapitation, exsanguination. Buried alive, burned on pyres, crushed by stones, thrown off cliffs.
Homo sapiens in nearly every part of the world has practiced human sacrifice at some point over at least five millennia, often killing females in fertility rites or for burial alongside powerful males.
But new research enabled by DNA analysis and other scientific advances has challenged assumptions about the identity of sacrificial victims, at least among the Maya of Central America.
Between 900 and 1,400 years ago, the Maya regularly sacrificed boys—particularly twins or close male relatives—according to a study published in June in the journal Nature.
The findings are based on the ancient DNA of 64 children who had been deposited in an underground cistern at the site of Chichén Itzá, a city built on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.
For the ancient Maya, being sacrificed was considered a privilege, so these boys—most of whom were between the ages of 3 and 6—were likely given up willingly by their families, according to Rodrigo Barquera, an immunogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and co-author of the recent study."
WOW- I was taken aback when I read this. Children sacrificed to gods. How barbaric! How sad. Are we any better with our abortion on demand and constant abuse of children by those in authority? No. There is nothing new under the sun said King Solomon. Nothing.
The whole article from the Wall Street Journal is here.
(Photograph by J. Krause. Text by Wall Street Journal.)
