Police found 150 skulls at a “crime scene” in Mexico. It turns out the victims, principally ladies, had been ritually decapitated over 1,000 years ago.

When Mexican police found a pile of about 150 skulls in a cave close to the Guatemalan border, they thought they were taking a look at a crime scene, and took the bones to the state capital.

It turns out it was a really cold case.

It took a decade of tests and evaluation to determine the skulls had been from sacrificial victims killed between A.D. 900 and 1200, the National Institute of Anthropology and Historical past mentioned Wednesday.

"Believing they had been against the law scene, investigators collected the bones and began inspecting them in Tuxtla Gutierrez," the state capital, the institute, often called INAH, stated in a statement.

The police in 2012 weren't being stupid; the border area around the city of Frontera Comalapa in southern Chiapas state has long been suffering from violence and immigrant trafficking. And pre-Hispanic cranium piles in Mexico normally show a hole bashed through either side of every skull, and have been usually found in ceremonial plazas, not caves.

However consultants mentioned Wednesday the victims within the cave had most likely been ritually decapitated and the skulls put on display on a type of trophy rack generally known as a "tzompantli." Spanish conquistadores wrote about seeing such racks in the 1520s, and some Spaniards' heads even wound up on them.

While usually strung on wood poles utilizing holes bashed by them - the common observe among the many Aztecs and different cultures - experts say the cave skulls might have rested atop poles, rather than being strung on them.

Curiously, there have been more females than males among the many victims, and none of them had any teeth.

In light of the cave experience, archaeologist Javier Montes de Paz mentioned individuals ought to in all probability call archaeologists, not police.

"When folks find one thing that could be in an archaeological context, don't contact it and notify local authorities or directly the INAH," he stated.

In 2015, archaeologists discovered the principle trophy rack of sacrificed human skulls at Mexico City's Templo Mayor Aztec wreck site.

That very same 12 months, artifacts found at the Zultepec-Tecoaque destroy web site revealed evidence from when tons of of people in a Spanish-led convoy were captured, sacrificed and apparently eaten.

A 2016 examine found that in societies the place social hierarchies have been taking form, ritual human sacrifices focused poor individuals, helping the powerful control the decrease classes and preserve them of their place.

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