Blood on the Stones: Heart Sacrifice and Sacrificial Altars in the Northern Maya Lowlands and Mexico-Tenochtitlan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "New Perspectives on Ritual Violence and Related Human Body Treatments in Ancient Mesoamerica" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Heart sacrifice constituted one of the most basic yet fundamental tenets of Mesoamerican ritual practice. At Early Postclassic Chichen Itza, as with the later Aztec of Tenochtitlan, hearts and blood were offered to the bellicose solar deity whose daily journey through the sky not only depended on but also demanded such offerings. Heart sacrifice was also a creative act that invoked concepts of the world directions, centrality, and cosmic and royal renewal. This paper will explore heart sacrifice and sacrificial altars in the northern Maya lowlands, including the Puuc region, to create a comparative parallel with material from Mexico-Tenochtitlan. Archaeological, architectural, ethnohistorical, and iconographic evidence will be presented for these sacrificial altars, both in terms of where they appear and what is depicted on them.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• New Perspectives on Ritual Violence and Related Human Body Treatments in Ancient Mesoamerica

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32713