Tzompantli
The tzompantli, from Nahuatl for 'skull rack', was a structure of wooden poles threaded with the skulls of sacrificial victims, erected beside Aztec temple platforms where daylight could display them to the sun. Spanish chroniclers were astonished by the great rack beside the Templo Mayor; Andres de Tapia counted the skulls in the tens of thousands, and Bernal Diaz described towers of them stacked in the ceremonial precinct. Excavations at the Templo Mayor uncovered the Huey Tzompantli, a carved stone platform of skull rows with hundreds of drilled skulls still mounted on wooden posts. The pra