Human sacrifice in Maya culture

[1] Human sacrifice among the Maya is evident from at least the Classic period (c. AD 250–900) right through to the final stages of the Spanish conquest in the 17th century.

[1] In AD 738, the vassal king Kʼakʼ Tiliw Chan Yopaat of Quiriguá captured his overlord, Uaxaclajuun Ubʼaah Kʼawiil of Copán and a few days later he ritually decapitated him;[2] such royal sacrifices were often recorded in Maya script with the "ax event" glyph.

The decapitation of an enemy king may have been performed as part of a ritual ballgame reenacting the victory of the Maya Hero Twins over the gods of the underworld.

[1] Sacrifice by decapitation is depicted in Classic period Maya art, and sometimes took place after the victim was tortured, being variously beaten, scalped, burnt or disembowelled.

It began with a dispersal of blood extracted either[clarify] from the mouth, nose, ears, fingers, or penis, typically with a sharp tool made from animal bone, such as a stingray spine.

The preferred method was most probably from below the diaphragm, as this allowed for easy access and not much blockage from bones (nicks, segmenting, and fracturing of the sternum and ribs indicate this).

[8] During the Postclassic period (c. 900–1524), the most common form of human sacrifice was heart extraction, influenced by the method used by the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico;[1] this usually took place in the courtyard of a temple, or upon the summit of the pyramid-temple.

[10] Four blue-painted attendants representing the four Chaacs of the cardinal directions stretched the sacrifice out over a convex stone that pushed the victim's chest upwards;[10] An official referred to as a nacom in Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán used a sacrificial knife made from flint to cut into the ribs just below the victim's left breast and pull out the still-beating heart.

Depending upon the exact ritual, sometimes the four Chaacs would throw the corpse down the pyramid steps to the courtyard below, where it would be skinned by assistant priests, except for the hands and feet.

The sacrificial victim was stripped and painted blue and made to wear a peaked cap, in a similar manner to the preparation for heart sacrifice.

The victim was bound to a stake during a ritual dance and blood was drawn from the genitals and smeared onto the image of the presiding deity.

Sacrifice with bow and arrow is recorded as far back as the Classic Period (c. 250 – 900) and was depicted with graffiti upon the walls of Tikal Temple II.

[16] In the Late Postclassic Kʼicheʼ language drama Rabinal Achi, an important war captive is tied to a stake representing the mythological Maize Tree and is sacrificed by being shot with arrows; the text compares the archers to hunters and the sacrifice to game.

Once bleeding, the blood would be caught on an item such as bark paper, cotton, animal feathers, and then burned as to deliver it to the gods.

[22] Late Classic graffiti from a structure buried under Group G in Tikal depicts a sacrifice bound to a stake with his hands tied behind his head; the victim was disembowelled.

[23] At the Classic period city of Palenque, a woman in her twenties was entombed alive to accompany a deceased nobleman as a funerary offering.

[27] Archaeological excavations at a number of sites, including Palenque, Calakmul and Becan, have uncovered skeletons that bear marks to the vertebrae and ribs consistent with heart extraction at the time of death using a long-bladed flint knife.

[28] During the Classic period, the sacrifice of companions to accompany high-ranking burials is likely to have been widespread and performed using the heart extraction method, leaving little evidence on skeletal remains.

These ballcourts were a major part in Maya dramatic display, and were used by rulers to demonstrate power and impress societies and followers.

[31] The Madrid Codex, a Postclassic hieroglyphic Maya book, has an illustration of sacrifice by heart extraction, with the victim stretched over an arched stone.

Writing at the end of the 17th century, Francisco Ximénez described the tradition that upon the temple of Tohil, human sacrifices were tied before the representation of the deity, where the priest would open the victim's chest and cut out his heart.

[39] A sacrificial flint knife was also recovered from Structure 3,[38] and a circular altar at the site is very similar to those used for so-called "gladiatorial sacrifice" by the Aztecs and it may have served this purpose.

[41] The same text describes how the Kaqchikel captured a powerful lord, called Tolkʼom, who was tied to a scaffold and was shot with arrows during a ritual dance.

[46] De Vico, who had established a small missionary church in San Marcos (in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala), had offended a local Maya ruler;[47] the indigenous leader shot the friar through the throat with an arrow; the angry natives then sacrificed him by cutting open his chest and extracting his heart.

The Spanish Captain Francisco de Mirones and a Franciscan priest were sacrificed using the heart extraction method after being bound to the forked posts of the church.

[52] In 1684 three Franciscan friars were killed, probably by heart sacrifice, at the Manche Chʼol settlement of Paliac on the Caribbean coast of Belize.

The Itza high priest AjKin Kan Ekʼ later related that he had the Franciscans bound in the form of crosses and then cut out their hearts.

Maya codices contain glyph like imagery that is related to deities, sacrifices, rituals, moon phases, planet movements, and calendars.