Ancient tower of Aztec SKULLS found buried deep beneath Mexico City stuns archeologists

The tower of skulls beneath Mexico City has revealed a shocking secret

A TOWER of human skulls found beneath Mexico City has stunned archeologists, potentially forcing us to rethink everything we thought we knew about the Aztecs.

A pillar of more than 650 preserved skulls, as well as thousands of fragments, was found set in limestone close to Templo Mayor, one of the main temples in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan.

It is believed the grim tower formed part of the Huey Tzompantli, a huge display of skulls designed to terrify invaders during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in the 16th century. 

Aztec warriors would display the severed heads of slain Spanish onquistadores - a common enough practice amongst Mesoamerican cultures before the conquest. 

But among the skulls of men, archeologists discovered the walls were also filled with the heads of women and children. 

The tower is believed to form part of the Huey Tzompantli skull display

Rodrigo Bolanos, a biological anthropologist investigating the find, told Reuters: "We were expecting just men, obviously young men, as warriors would be, and the thing about the women and children is that you'd think they wouldn't be going to war.

"Something is happening that we have no record of, and this is really new, a first in the Huey Tzompantli."

The discovery has forced archeologists into a rethink over how the Aztecs lived

Raul Barrera, one of the archaeologists working at the site alongside the huge Metropolitan Cathedral built over the Templo Mayor, said the skulls would have been set in the tower after they had stood on public display on the tzompantli.

Roughly six meters in diameter, the tower stood on the corner of the chapel of Huitzilopochtli, Aztec god of the sun, war and human sacrifice.

Its base has yet to be unearthed.

Among the skulls of male soldiers, the heads of women and children were also discovered

THere are said to be hundreds of thousands of skulls built into the horrific struture

There was no doubt that the tower was one of the skull edifices mentioned by Andres de Tapia, a Spanish soldier who accompanied Cortes in the 1521 conquest of Mexico, Barrera said.

In his account of the campaign, de Tapia said he counted tens of thousands of skulls at what became known as the Huey Tzompantli. Barrera said 676 skulls had so far been found, and that the number would rise as excavations went on.

The Aztecs and other Mesoamerican peoples performed ritualistic human sacrifices as offerings to the sun.

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