[Aztlan] Only 50/year sacrificed at Tenochtitlan?

Thu Jan 29 17:19:20 CST 2009

I think there are two separate issues here regarding the sacrifices at Tenochtitlan: How many individuals were sacrificed in a "normal" year, and how many were sacrificed at special events like the dedication of an important building. 

For many of the arguments used to portray the Aztecs as barbaric cannibals, it is assumed that large numbers of captives were killed on a regular basis. Saying that in most years 50 or so were killed, with a couple hundred killed during a single ceremony once or twice in a person's lifetime doesn't really support the cannibalistic argument.

Thanks,

Jeff Baker

--- On Thu, 1/29/09, Mary Hopkins <mhopkins at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:

> From: Mary Hopkins <mhopkins at fas.harvard.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Only 50/year sacrificed at Tenochtitlan?
> To: aztlan at lists.famsi.org, "D. M. Urquidi" <deamayaspin at yahoo.com>
> Date: Thursday, January 29, 2009, 1:00 PM
> I was thinking of the sacrificial victims under and around
> the Feathered 
> Serpent Pyramid. That is, to my recollection, the largest
> burial known 
> from the site; what stands out about other burials at
> Teotihuacan is 
> mostly their scarcity.
> 
> I don't offhand remember the number of burials at FSP
> but it was not 2000 
> or anything near it. A few hundred, more like. Definitely
> enough to 
> establish that large-scale sacrifice took place. The 2000
> would perhaps 
> refer to some of the numbers from the Spanish chronicles,
> which as M. 
> Lobjois says may have been exaggerated.
> 
> The walls across the Avenue of the Dead have been there
> since anyone can 
> remember.
> 
> MH
> 
> 
> On Thu, 29 Jan 2009, D. M. Urquidi wrote:
> 
> > Mary:
> >
> > I remember those very well, but that was only in
> Teotihuacan in the 
> > Palacio on the Road of the Dead (Might have the wrong
> sequence of words 
> > here, Do not remember the name of the road in front of
> the pyramids. I 
> > do remember though when i first went there, there were
> walls across that 
> > road from one side to the other, as if the road was
> once a waterway. I 
> > am thinking of the 2,000 that died in one day (not
> found in the palacio) 
> > and the priests would have had to lift the knive every
> few seconds to 
> > kill so many, for longer than a day.
> >
> > Dea
> >
> > D. M. Urquidi  P. O. Box 49485  Austin, Texas 78765 
> http://www.mayalords.org   
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ancientamericas/
> >
> >
> > --- On Thu, 1/29/09, Mary Hopkins
> <mhopkins at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> >
> >> From: Mary Hopkins
> <mhopkins at fas.harvard.edu>
> >> Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Only 50/year sacrificed at
> Tenochtitlan?
> >> To: "D. M. Urquidi"
> <deamayaspin at yahoo.com>
> >> Cc: sierradeagua at yahoo.com, "Bertrand
> Lobjois" <blobjois at gmail.com>,
> aztlan at lists.famsi.org
> >> Date: Thursday, January 29, 2009, 1:05 PM
> >> It seems to me that Sugiyama's excavation
> found large
> >> numbers of young
> >> adults. Really unlikely demographic for an
> accident or
> >> epidemic. They were
> >> also bound.
> >>
> >> On Thu, 29 Jan 2009, D. M. Urquidi wrote:
> >>
> >>> Folks:
> >>>
> >>> Is it possible that the massive burial was not
> >> sacrifices per se, but a massive death of a
> community or of
> >> the land itself due to unforseen circumstances?
> >>>
> >>> Dea
> >>>
> >>> D. M. Urquidi  P. O. Box 49485  Austin, Texas
> 78765
> >> http://www.mayalords.org  
> >>
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ancientamericas/
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --- On Thu, 1/29/09, Bertrand Lobjois
> >> <blobjois at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> From: Bertrand Lobjois
> <blobjois at gmail.com>
> >>>> Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Only 50/year
> sacrificed at
> >> Tenochtitlan?
> >>>> To: sierradeagua at yahoo.com
> >>>> Cc: aztlan at lists.famsi.org
> >>>> Date: Thursday, January 29, 2009, 9:49 AM
> >>>> The Cronicles of Sahagun or Duran explains
> us that
> >> some
> >>>> captives made on the
> >>>> battlefield were sacrified for the feast
> in each
> >>>> neighbourhood in little
> >>>> teocalli... I believe in massive
> sacrifices for
> >> important
> >>>> events. Maybe the
> >>>> Spaniard exagerated the number of the
> victims a
> >> little in
> >>>> order to favorize
> >>>> the evangelization. But look what happened
> in the
> >> feathered
> >>>> serpent's
> >>>> pyramid of Teotihuacan : Sugiyama's
> work in
> >> the
> >>>> 1980-90's showed us that
> >>>> massive sacrifices have existed from early
> times
> >> in
> >>>> Mesoamerican.
> >>>>
> >>>> Bertrand LOBJOIS
> >>>> Universidad de Monterrey
> >>>> Division de Ciencias Sociales
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> 2009/1/27 J. L. Baker
> >> <sierradeagua at yahoo.com>
> >>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Related to this discussion are two
> articles by
> >> Barry
> >>>> Isaac from 1983 on
> >>>>> Aztec warfare (see references below)
> in which
> >> he
> >>>> reviewed the accounts on
> >>>>> the number of captives taken in
> battle. His
> >> results,
> >>>> including the Flowery
> >>>>> War battles were that relatively few
> >> individuals were
> >>>> actually taken as
> >>>>> captives in warfare. Its been a while
> since I
> >> have
> >>>> read the articles, so I
> >>>>> don't recall the exact numbers any
> more,
> >> but I
> >>>> want to say that most battles
> >>>>> resulted in less than a 100 captives,
> with the
> >> larger
> >>>> numbers around 300 or
> >>>>> so captives. With clear evidence that
> many war
> >>>> captives were sold into
> >>>>> slavery, this substantially reduces
> the number
> >> of
> >>>> captives available for
> >>>>> sacrifice as well, which fits in well
> with the
> >>>> argument presented by Baron.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Isaac, Barry
> >>>>> 1983 Aztec Warfare: Goals and
> Battlefield
> >> Comportment.
> >>>> Ethnology 22:
> >>>>> 121-131.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> 1983 The Aztec "Flowery
> War": A
> >> Geopolitical
> >>>> Explanation. Journal of
> >>>>> Anthropological Research 39: 415-432.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thanks,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Jeff Baker
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> http://mexiqueancien.blogspot.com
> >>>>
> >>>> Un blog archéologique en français sur la
> >> Mésoamérique
> >>>>
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