Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

> One conquistador, Andrés de Tapia, was given the task of counting the skulls on the "tzompantli" at Tenochtitlan and estimated that there were 136,000 skulls on it.[17] However, based on numbers given by Taipa and Fray Diego Durán, Bernard Ortiz de Montellano[18] has calculated that there were at most 60,000 skulls on the "Hueyi Tzompantli" (Great Skullrack) of Tenochtitlan. The "Hueyi Tzompantli" consisted of a massive masonry platform composed of “thirty long steps” measuring fully 60 meters in length by 30 meters wide at its summit. Atop of the aforementioned platform was erected an equally formidable wooden palisade and scaffolding consisting of between 60 and 70 massive uprights or timbers woven together with an impressive constellation of horizontal cross beams upon which were suspended the tens of thousands of decapitated human heads once impaled thereon.[19] There were at least five more skull racks in Tenochtitlan but by all accounts they were much smaller.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzompantli#Aztec

Maybe, maybe not. It didn't hurt that the Spaniards had powerful biological weapons on their side that decimated [1] the Aztec population. Same as what happened here in the United States with the native population. Had it been the natives spreading new infectious diseases to the arriving europeans, history would probably have been quite different.

Imagine going to a new land and upon contact with the natives a sizable portion of your people always dies off while the natives stay healthy and at full fighting strength. And even the ones that do not die off still get so sick that it completely incapacitates them for some time and hence unable to fight. They'd be very vulnerable to native attacks.

The news would spread like wild fire in Europe that everybody that travels to the new world dies because of sorcery or what not. Yep, history could have turned out very differently indeed.

[1]http://blogs.plos.org/publichealth/2013/07/30/guest-post-wha...

This is the relevant part:

>>When Hernando Cortes and his army conquered Mexico starting in 1519, there were roughly about 25 million people living in what is now Mexico. A hundred years later, after a series of epidemics decimated the local population, perhaps as few as 1.2 million natives survived. Records confirm there was a smallpox epidemic in 1519 and 1520, immediately after the Europeans arrived, killing between 5 and 8 million people<<

The first thing I found myself thinking while reading the article was, what was the appropriate response to a society like that? If you’re part of a 16th century expedition, and you’ve come across a nightmare society like this, what’s the right thing to do?

I’m not so quick to dismiss “conquer the country, ban human sacrifice, pave over the temples.” It might not be the worst option. :/

of course, that is not the last word. but, it's consistent with other evidence that large wooden poles bearing multiple skulls did exist.

what's more, the technical process of transforming untreated corn meal into a food humans can digest and extract B vitamins from is one of the many triumphs of ancient Mesoamerican cuisine. they figured out how to do all of this centuries before the Spanish arrived, and i would guess, before human sacrifice attained a massive scale in the Aztec era.

i find it very difficult to believe that cannibalism was nutritionally necessary.