tzompantli

ESPAÑOL INGLES

TZOMPANTLIS AND HUMAN

SACRIFICES IN MESOAMERICA

▪ Tzompantli, in Nahuatl, means spear. ▪ Tzompantli was an altar where the heads still bloody of the sacrificed captives were skewered in the public view with the purpose of to honor the Gods. ▪ It was a practical common between the old mesoamericans to behead the victims of human sacrifices and to conserve its skulls in a kind of wood stockade. ▪ The first European witnesses who wrote about tzompantli were Hernan Cortés, Bernal Díaz del Castillo and Andrés de Tapia. ▪ Later, Bernardino de Sahagún mentions that only in Tenochtitlan seven tzompantlis existed.

▪ Some tzompantlis have been found by means of archaeological explorations. In 1951 was one in Chichén Itzá. ▪ In 1970 Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, Mexican archaeologist found another tzompantli in Tula.

▪ Tzompantli passed to history leaving a tenuous legacy in the modern Mexican culture, for example the bread of died and the Day of Deads altar display cultural elements fruit of the syncretism of catholic tradition and art of tzompantli. ▪ Apart diverse actual artists have retaken reasons and inconography of tzompantli