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2015-2017 CE (excavation of a 15th-16th century structure)Reputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Archaeologists Uncover the Huey Tzompantli Skull Tower

A 2015 dig beneath the Templo Mayor finds hundreds of real skulls, confirming Spanish accounts of a monument the conquistadors described but that scholars long treated with suspicion

On the timeline · around 2015-2017 CE (excavation of a 15th-16th century structure) · Cortes and the Fall of TenochtitlanCortes and the Fall of TenochtitlanArchaeologists Uncover the Huey Tzompantli Skull Tower15201521

Quick facts

Excavator
INAH Urban Archaeology Program
First discovery
2015, 484 skulls
Later total
c. 650 skulls
Demographics
c. 25% women and children

What happened

In 2015, researchers from the Urban Archaeology Program of Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, digging beneath the Templo Mayor site in Mexico City, uncovered a section of the Huey Tzompantli, the temple's main trophy structure for displaying the skulls of sacrificial victims, initially finding 484 skulls. Smithsonian Magazine reported that continued excavation eventually brought the total count to roughly 650 skulls, built up in at least three distinct construction phases dated to between about 1486 and 1502, the reign of Ahuitzotl. Analysis of the remains found that around a quarter belonged to women and children, contradicting earlier assumptions that the tower held only defeated male warriors. The skulls, bonded together with lime, had first been displayed on smaller racks elsewhere in the city before being incorporated into the larger tower structure, and Spanish forces and their indigenous allies partially destroyed the tower when they occupied Tenochtitlan in the 1520s.

Why it matters

This excavation is physical, dated archaeological confirmation that skull racks and towers described by Spanish conquistadors were real structures rather than colonial invention, even though it cannot settle the separate and much more contested question of the total annual sacrifice figures claimed in Spanish chronicles. It also revised the assumption that sacrifice victims here were exclusively captured male warriors.

How we know

This is a direct archaeological find, not a textual claim: physical skulls, excavated in place, dated through their construction context by INAH's own excavation team over a decade of continued analysis.

Sources

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