Tzompantli

The name comes from the Classical Nahuatl language of the Aztecs but is also commonly applied to similar structures depicted in other civilizations. Its precise etymology is uncertain although its general interpretation is 'skull rack', 'wall of skulls', or 'skull banner'. It is most likely a compound of the Nahuatl words {{lang|nci|tzontecomatl}} ('skull'; from {{lang|nci|tzontli}} or {{lang|nci|tzom-}} 'hair', 'scalp' and {{lang|nci|tecomatl}} ('gourd' or 'container'), and {{lang|nci|pamitl}} ('banner'). That derivation has been ascribed to explain the depictions in several codices that associate these with banners; however, Nahuatl linguist Frances Karttunen has proposed that {{lang|nci|pantli}} means merely 'row' or 'wall'.{{cite web | first1=Frances |last1=Karttunen | title=Re: Translation of Tzompantli | work=Linguist List Server | url=http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0501a&L=nahuat-l&D=1&P=197 |date=5 January 2005 | accessdate=25 September 2005 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071025200407/http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0501a&L=nahuat-l&D=1&P=197 | archive-date=25 October 2007 }}

It was most commonly erected as a linearly-arranged series of vertical posts connected by a series of horizontal crossbeams. The skulls were pierced or threaded laterally along these horizontal stakes. An alternate arrangement, more common in the Maya regions, was for the skulls to be impaled on top of one another along the vertical posts.Nelson et al. 1992, p. 308.

{{lang|nci|Tzompantli}} is known chiefly for their depiction in Late Postclassic (13th to 16th centuries) and post-Conquest (mid-16th to 17th centuries) codices, contemporary accounts of the conquistadores, and several other inscriptions. However, a {{lang|nci|tzompantli}}-like structure, thought to be the first instance of such structures, has been excavated from the Proto-Classic Zapotec civilization at the La Coyotera, Oaxaca site, dating from around the 2nd century BCE to the 3rd century CE.Spencer 1982, pp. 236–239. The Zapotecs called this structure a {{Lang|zap|yàgabetoo}}, and it displayed 61 skulls.Flannery 2003.

{{lang|nci|Tzompantli}} are also noted in other Mesoamerican pre-Columbian cultures, such as the Toltec and Mixtec.Coe 2011, p. 196.Mendoza 2007, p. 396.

At the Toltec capital of Tula the first indications in Central Mexico of a real fascination with skulls and skeletons. Tula flourished from the ninth until the thirteenth century. The site includes the decimated remains of a {{lang|nci|tzompantli}}. The {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} at Tula displayed multiple rows of stone carved skulls adorning the sides of a broad platform upon which the actual skulls of sacrificial victims were exhibited. The {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} appeared during the final phases of civilization at Tula, which was destroyed around 1200.Brandes 2009, p. 51.

Other examples are indicated from Maya civilization sites such as Uxmal and other Puuc region sites of the Yucatán, dating from around the late 9th-century decline of the Maya Classical Era. A particularly fine and intact inscription example survives at the extensive Chichen Itza site.Miller and Taube 1993, p. 176.

{{Wide image|2014-01-03 Tzompantli in Chichén Itzá anagoria.jpg|1500px|Chichén Itzá {{lang|nci|tzompantli}}}}

Human sacrifice on a large scale was introduced to the Maya by the Toltecs from the appearances of the {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} in the Chichen Itza ball courts. Six ball court reliefs at Chichen Itza depict the decapitation of a ball player; it seems that the losers would be beheaded and would have their skulls placed on the {{lang|nci|tzompantli}}.Coe 2011, pp. 195–196 (or 210 in the 2015 edition).

Image:Tzompantli Tovar.jpeg}}; from Juan de Tovar's 1587 manuscript, also known as the Tovar Codex.]]

The word {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} is Nahuatl and was used by the Aztecs to refer to the skull-racks found in many Aztec cities; The first and most prominent example is the {{lang|nci|Hueyi Tzompantli}} (Great Skull-rack) located in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and described by the early conquistadors. There were at least five more skull racks in Tenochtitlan but by all accounts they were much smaller.

According to Bernal Díaz del Castillo's eye-witness account, the {{lang|es|Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España}}, written several decades after the event, after Hernán Cortés's expedition was forced to make their initial retreat from Tenochtitlan, the Aztecs erected a makeshift {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} to display the severed heads of men and horses they had captured from the invaders. This {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} is depicted in the twelfth book of the Florentine Codex.{{Cite web|url=https://www.wdl.org/en/item/10096/view/1/1/|title=General History of the Things of New Spain by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún: The Florentine Codex — Viewer — World Digital Library|website=www.wdl.org|language=en|access-date=3 November 2018}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.famsi.org/research/pohl/pohl_meeting.html|title=FAMSI - John Pohl's Mesoamerica - Historical Records of the Conquest|last=famsi|website=www.famsi.org|language=EN|access-date=4 November 2018}} This taunting is also depicted in an Aztec codex which relates the story, and the subsequent battles which led to the eventual capture of the city by the Spanish forces and their allies.Diaz del Castillo 1963.

During the stay of Cortes's expedition in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan (initially as guest-captives of the Emperor Moctezuma II, before the battle which would lead to the conquest), they reported a wooden {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} altar adorned with the skulls from recent sacrifices.Levy 2009, p. 65. Within the complex of the Templo Mayor itself, a relief in stucco depicted these sacrifices; the remains of this relief have survived and may now be seen in the ruins in the Zócalo of present-day Mexico City.

Excavations at Templo Mayor in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan have revealed many skulls belonging to women and children, in addition to those of men, a demonstration of the diversity of the human sacrifices in Aztec culture.{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40473547|title=Aztec tower of human skulls uncovered in Mexico City|last1=BBC Staff|date=2 July 2017|work=British Broadcasting Company|accessdate=3 July 2017}} While the severed heads were put on display, many scholars have determined that the limbs of Aztec victims were cannibalized.Michael Harner 1977, p. 120. Fray Diego Durán confirms this, stating that skulls were delivered to temples after "the flesh had been eaten".Durán, Diego. Book of the gods and rites and the ancient calendar. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971. Print

Durán notes that the {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} were periodically renovated. Regarding this, Durán states: "When [the skulls] become old and deteriorated, they fell in pieces. When the palisade become old, however, it was renovated, and on its removal many [skulls] broke. Others were removed to make room for more, so that there would be a place for those were to be killed later."

Archeologist Eduardo Contreras believes that the tissue attached to skulls was removed prior to a {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} pole being inserted through the side of the skulls. He bases these assumptions on excavations of the Plaza de las Tres Culturas at Tlatelolco, Mexico City, between 1960 and 1965.

The {{lang|nci|Hueyi Tzompantli|italic=no}} was the central {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} found in Tenochtitlan. The skull rack here served as a reminder of the Aztec's ongoing Flowery Wars.Coe and Koontz 2008, p. 194. An important aspect of Aztec warfare was the capture of enemy warriors to serve as sacrificial victims, which is evident from the number of warriors found sacrificed around Aztec structures.Coe and Koontz 2008, p. 110. One conquistador, Andrés de Tapia, was given the task of counting the skulls on the {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} at Tenochtitlan and estimated that there were 136,000 skulls on it.Harner 1977, p. 122. However, based on numbers given by Taipa and Fray Diego Durán, Bernard Ortiz de MontellanoOrtíz de Montellano 1983. has calculated that there were at most 60,000 skulls on the {{lang|nci|Hueyi Tzompantli}} of Tenochtitlan. The {{lang|nci|Hueyi Tzompantli}} consisted of a massive masonry platform composed of “thirty long steps” measuring fully 60 meters in length by 30 meters wide at its summit. Atop of the aforementioned platform was erected an equally formidable wooden palisade and scaffolding consisting of between 60 and 70 massive uprights or timbers woven together with an impressive constellation of horizontal cross beams upon which were suspended the tens of thousands of decapitated human heads once impaled thereon.Ruben Mendoza 2007, pp. 407–408. Regarding this, Bernal Díaz de Castillo states:

{{quote|I remember that they had in a plaza, where there were some shrines, so many places of dead skulls, which could be counted, according to the concert as they were set, that when they appeared they would be more than one hundred thousand; and I say again about one hundred thousand. And in another part of the square were as many rowers of bones without meat, bones of dead, that could not be counted; and they had in many beams many heads hanging from one part to another. And keeping those bones and skulls were three priests, who, as we understood, were in charge of them. Of which we had to look more after we entered the land well: in all the villages they were that way, and also in Tascala.{{Cite book|url=http://www.rae.es/sites/default/files/Aparato_de_variantes_Historia_verdadera_de_la_conquista_de_la_Nueva_Espana.pdf|title=Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España|last=Díaz del Castillo|first=Bernal|pages=188}}}}

Various scholarly interpretations of the cosmological importance of {{lang|nci|Hueyi Tzompantli|italic=no}}'s placement have emerged. Eduardo Matos Moctezuma claims that a central {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} was placed north of the Templo Mayor. Moctezuma notes that no corresponding shrine was found south. Moctezuma also notes that Mexica views of the universe, which divide the universe into a horizontal and vertical plane, claim that the northern sector of the horizontal plane corresponds to Mictlampa, or the land of the dead.Vol. 53, No. 4, 75th Anniversary Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (December 1985), pp. 797–813. On the other hand, Rubén G. Mendoza contends that the {{lang|nci|Hueyi Tzompantli|italic=no}} was placed on an east–west axis between the Templo Mayor and a principal ball court. The Hueyi Tzompantli would have been aligned with the marker within the Templo Mayor dividing one half for Tlāloc and the other half for {{lang|nci|Huītzilōpōchtli|italic=no}}. Mendoza argues that as the sun traveled through the sky, it would have ascended into the "vault of the heavens", represented by the {{lang|nci|Hueyi Tzompantli|italic=no}}.{{Cite book|last=Mendoza |first=Rubén G.|date=2007|chapter=The Divine Gourd Tree|chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-0-387-48303-0_16.pdf|pages=400–443|language=en|doi=10.1007/978-0-387-48303-0_16|isbn=978-0-387-48303-0|publisher=Springer|series=Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology|title=The Taking and Displaying of Human Body Parts as Trophies by Amerindians}}

Modern archeological evidence has found that this large palisade was flanked by two circular towers made out of skulls and mortar.{{Cite news|url=https://www.science.org/content/article/feeding-gods-hundreds-skulls-reveal-massive-scale-human-sacrifice-aztec-capital|title=Feeding the gods: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital|date=20 June 2018|work=Science|access-date=5 November 2018|language=en}}

File:Codex Mendoza folio 2r.jpg

There are numerous depictions of {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} in Aztec codices, dating from around the time or shortly after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, such as the Durán Codex, Ramírez Codex, and Codex Borgia. The Codex Mendoza contains multiple depictions of {{lang|nci|tzompantli}}. The Frontispiece of the Codex Mendoza depicts a {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} holding single skull next to an eagle perched on a cactus. A similar depiction of a {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} is used to represent the town of Tzompanco in the Codex Mendoza.{{Cite web |url=https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/codex-mendoza-1542/|title=Codex Mendoza (1542) |work=The Public Domain Review |access-date=9 November 2018|date=14 May 2012}} Folio 45v of the Codex Borgia depicts a platform adorned with skulls.{{Cite web |url=http://www.famsi.org/research/loubat/Borgia/thumbs0.html |work=FAMSI |publisher=University Library of Rostock |title=Codex Borgia (Loubat 1898) |access-date=9 November 2018}}

Archaeologists affiliated with the National Institute of Anthropology and History have taken part in a series of excavations since 2015 that have resulted in the finding of {{lang|nci|tzompantli}}. These excavations took place near the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral and included the finding of one {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} tower. These excavations have revealed that women and children were sacrificed, although men made up 75% of the sacrificial victims.

Apart from their use to display the skulls of ritualistically-executed war captives, {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} often occur in the contexts of Mesoamerican ball courts, which were widespread throughout the region's civilizations and sites. The game was 'played for keeps' ending with the losing team being sacrificed. The captain of the winning team was tasked with taking the head of the losing team's captain to be displayed on a {{lang|nci|tzompantli}}. In these contexts it appears that the {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} was used to display the losers' heads of this often highly ritualised game. Not all games resulted in this outcome, however, and for those that did it is surmised that these participants were often notable captives. An alternative theory is that it was the captain of the winning team who lost his head, but there is little evidence that this was the case.Campbell 1988, p. 108. Still, it is acknowledged that in Mesoamerican culture to be sacrificed was to be honored with feeding the gods.Coe and Koontz 2008, pp. 204–205. Tula, the former Toltec capital, has a well-preserved {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} inscription on its ball court.

The association with ball courts is also reflected in the Popol Vuh, the famous religious, historical and cultural account of the K'iche' Maya. When Hun Hunahpu, father of the Maya Hero Twins, was killed by the lords of the Underworld (Xibalba), his head was hung in a gourd tree next to a ball court.Coe 2011, p. 67. The gourd tree is a clear representation of a {{lang|nci|tzompantli}}, and the image of skulls in trees as if they were fruits is also a common indicator of a {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} and the associations with some of the game's metaphorical interpretations.Mendoza 2007, p. 418.

File:The tzompantli or Skull Platform.JPG|Detail of {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} at Chichen Itza

File:Tzompantli Est 4.JPG|{{lang|nci|Tzompantli}} found at Monument Four of Calixtlahuaca

File:Tzompantli in the Florentine Codex.png|The Twelfth Book of the Florentine Codex shows the heads of captured Spanish soldiers and their horses displayed on a {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} in front of the Temple of Huitzilopochtli.

File:Tzompantli (Templo Mayor) - Ciudad de México.jpg|An excavated {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} from the Templo Mayor in modern-day Mexico City

File:Tzompantli Detail.jpg|Replica of a {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} in the {{lang|es|Museo Nacional de Historia|italic=no}} in Mexico City

File:Tzompantli.jpg|{{lang|nci|Tzompantli}} at the Museum of the Templo Mayor.

File:Tzompantli in Codex Borgia.png|{{lang|nci|Tzompantli}} as depicted in Codex Borgia

File:Tzompantli in Codex Vaticanus 3778.png|{{lang|nci|Tzompantli}} in Codex Vaticanus 3778, a facsimile of the Codex Ríos

File:Tzompantli in Codex Mendoza.jpg|A simplified {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} represents the town of Tzompanco in the Codex Mendoza

{{lang|nci|Tzompantli}} have been the subject of multiple artworks created during the twentieth century. Jose Chavez Morado depicted {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} in a 1961 painting.{{Cite news|url=http://www.marco.org.mx/programas/HojaSala_UnSiglo.pdf|title=La Colección de Arte Moderno|work=Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey}} George O. Jackson, as part of his Essence of Mexico project, photographed various representations of skulls, which he refers to as {{lang|es|calaveras}} (the Spanish word for 'skulls'); Jackson refers to groups of these photos as {{lang|nci|tzompantli}}.{{Cite web |url=http://www.georgeojacksondellano.com/calaveras.html |title=CALAVERAS |website=George O. Jackson de Llano |language=en |access-date=9 November 2018 }} {{lang|nci|Tzompantli}} were also the subject of murals created for the festival Mextonia, which celebrates Mexican culture and occurs in Estonia, by the art collective Nueve Arte Urbano.{{Cite news |url=http://www.eluniversalqueretaro.mx/cultura/06-12-2017/nueve-arte-urbano-recibe-premio-internacional-por-mural-tzompantli |title=Nueve Arte Urbano recibe premio internacional por mural Tzompantli |date=6 December 2017 |work=Querétaro |access-date=10 November 2018 |language=es }} The {{lang|es|Museo de Arte de Querétaro|italic=no}} featured an exhibit titled {{lang|nci|Tzompantli}}, which featured works made by various artists depicting skulls.{{Cite news |url=http://www.eluniversalqueretaro.mx/vida-q/01-11-2014/un-tzompantli-contemporaneo |title=Un Tzompantli contemporáneo |date=1 November 2014 |work=Querétaro |access-date=10 November 2018 |language=es }}

In Charles Stross's Laundry Files novels, the new prime minister of the United Kingdom adds a {{lang|nci|tzompantli}} to the Marble Arch.

{{commons category}}

• Capela dos Ossos
• Headhunting
• Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini
• Sedlec Ossuary
• Skull Chapel, Czermna
• Skull Tower

{{Reflist|25em}}

• {{cite book |last=Brandes |first=Stanley |title= Skulls to the Living, Bread to the Dead: The Day of the Dead in Mexico and Beyond |publisher= John Wiley & Sons |year = 2009 |location= Hoboken |isbn=9781405178709}}
• {{cite book|last=Campbell|first=Joseph|title=The Power of Myth|year=1988|publisher=Doubleday|location=New York|isbn=978-0385418867|url=https://archive.org/details/powerofmyth00camp_0}}
• {{cite book |last1=Coe |first1=Michael D. |author-link=Michael D. Coe |first2=Rex |last2=Koontz |author2-link=Rex Koontz |year=2008|title=Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs |publisher=Thames and Hudson |location=New York |isbn=978-0-500-28755-2}}
• {{cite book |author=Coe, Michael D. |author-link=Michael D. Coe |year=2011|title=The Maya |publisher=Thames and Hudson |location=New York |isbn=978-0-500-28902-0}}
• {{cite book |last=Diaz del Castillo |first=Bernal |translator=J. M. Cohen |title=Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España |trans-title=The Conquest of New Spain |publisher=Penguin Group |location=New York |year=1963 |isbn=978-0140441239 |url=https://archive.org/details/conquestofnewspa00diaz }}
• {{cite journal|last1=Flannery|first1=Kent V.|first2=Joyce |last2=Marcus |title=The origin of war: New 14C dates from ancient Mexico|journal=PNAS|date=July 2003|volume=100|issue=20|doi=10.1073/pnas.1934526100|pages=11801–11805|pmid=14500785|pmc=208841|bibcode=2003PNAS..10011801F|doi-access=free}}
• {{cite journal|last=Harner|first=Michael|title=The Ecological Basis for Aztec Sacrifice|journal=American Ethnologist|date=February 1977|volume=4|issue=1|pages=117–135|doi=10.1525/ae.1977.4.1.02a00070|jstor=643526|doi-access=free}}
• {{cite book |last=Levy |first=Buddy |title= Conquistador: Hernán Cortés, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs |publisher= Random House LLC |year= 2009 |location= New York |isbn= 9780553384710}}
• {{cite book |last=Mendoza |first=Ruben G. |title=The Taking and Displaying of Human Body Parts as Trophies by Amerindians |chapter=The Divine Gourd Tree |year=2007 |editor-first=Richard J. |editor-last=Chacon |editor2-first=David H. |editor2-last=Dye |pages=[https://archive.org/details/takingdisplaying0000unse/page/400 400–443] |publisher=Springer Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-387-48300-9 |doi=10.1007/978-0-387-48303-0_16 |series=Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/takingdisplaying0000unse/page/400 }}
• {{cite book |last1=Miller |first1=Mary |author-link=Mary Miller (art historian) |first2=Karl |last2=Taube |author2-link=Karl Taube |year=1993 |title=The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya |publisher=Thames and Hudson |location=London |isbn=978-0-500-05068-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/godssymbolsofa00mill }}
• {{cite journal|last1=Nelson|first1=Ben A. |first2=J. Andrew |last2=Darling |first3=David A. |last3=Kice|title=Mortuary Practices and the Social Order at La Quemada, Zacatecas, Mexico|journal=Latin American Antiquity|date=December 1992|volume=3|issue=4|pages=298–315|doi=10.2307/971951|jstor=971951 |s2cid=163819183 }}
• {{cite journal |doi=10.1525/aa.1983.85.2.02a00130 |last1=Ortíz de Montellano |first1=Bernard R. |year=1983 |title=Counting Skulls: Comment on the Aztec Cannibalism Theory of Harner-Harris|journal=American Anthropologist |volume=85| issue = 2 |pages=403–406|doi-access= }}
• {{cite book |author=Palka, Joel W. |year=2007 | title=Historical Dictionary of Mesoamerica | publisher=Scarecrow Press | location=Lanham |isbn=978-0810837157}}
• {{cite book |last=Spencer |first=C. S. | title=The Cuicatlán Cañada and Monte Albán: A Study of Primary State Formation | publisher=Academic Press |location=New York | year=1982 | isbn=978-0-12-656680-2}}

Category:Aztec society

Category:Human head and neck

Category:Human trophy collecting

Category:Maya society

Category:Mesoamerican warfare

Category:Mesoamerica

Category:Cannibalism in North America