The return of Mayan-style human sacrifice

…some of the best historical stories hide behind the most oblique academic titles. Take, for example, Vera Tiesler and Andrea Cucina, ‘Procedures in Human Heart Extraction and Ritual Meaning: A Taphonomic Assessment of Anthropogenic Marks in Classic Maya Skeletons’ (Latin American Antiquity 17 2006).

Briefly, then, members of the staff of the Medical Forensic Service in Mérida (Mexico) took three corpses. The staff pinioned the corpses out on the table in the style of illustrations of Mayan sacrifices (‘overextended position’). They then proceeded to remove the heart from the three corpses, following a different technique on each body, employing Mayan cutting instruments (‘bifacial obsidian knives’) instead of scalpels. They also removed the liver and other organs. All this was done to see whether marks were left on the skeleton.

From Beachcombing’s Bizarre History Blog.