National Geographic reports of a discovery of the largest child sacrifice in human history in Peru. Carbon dating indicates the mass killing took place nearly 600 years ago. In addition to finding the skeletal remains of 140 children, the archeologists unearthed the remains of 200 llamas. Surely PETA now looks upon Christopher Columbus in a more favorable light.
“The skeletal remains of both children and animals show evidence of cuts to the sternum as well as rib dislocations,” National Geographic informs, “which suggests that the victims’ chests were cut open and pulled apart, perhaps to facilitate the removal of the heart.”
If you watched Apocalypto, the visual is a familiar one. But instead of the Mayans on the silver screen, the Chimu Empire perpetrated this atrocity, and probably many others, in real life. National Geographic points out that archeologists discovered the previous record of 42 children sacrificed by the Aztecs at Mexico City. So the practice occurred cross culturally among the natives. In Peru, the children ranged in age from five to fourteen.
The article notes that “scientists believe that the ritual may have played an important role in the development of complex societies through social stratification and control of populations by elite social classes.” People less educated but with more common sense regard it as primitive and sick.
