page_title: Human sacrifice in Maya culture
hierarchical_section_title: Human sacrifice in Maya culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Chichen Itza,Yucatan, Mexico: Ballcourt reliefs Deutsch: Chichen Itza,Yucatan, Mexico: Ballspielplatz Relief Mitte
context_page_description: During the pre-Columbian era, human sacrifice in Maya culture was the ritual offering of nourishment to the gods. Blood was viewed as a potent source of nourishment for the Maya deities, and the sacrifice of a living creature was a powerful blood offering. By extension, the sacrifice of a human life was the ultimate offering of blood to the gods, and the most important Maya rituals culminated in human sacrifice. Generally only high status prisoners of war were sacrificed, with lower status captives being used for labour.
  Human sacrifice among the Maya is evident from at least the Classic period right through to the final stages of the Spanish conquest in the 17th century. Human sacrifice is depicted in Classic Maya art, is mentioned in Classic period hieroglyphic texts and has been verified archaeologically by analysis of skeletal remains from the Classic and Postclassic periods.
context_section_description: During the pre-Columbian era, human sacrifice in Maya culture was the ritual offering of nourishment to the gods. Blood was viewed as a potent source of nourishment for the Maya deities, and the sacrifice of a living creature was a powerful blood offering. By extension, the sacrifice of a human life was the ultimate offering of blood to the gods, and the most important Maya rituals culminated in human sacrifice. Generally only high status prisoners of war were sacrificed, with lower status captives being used for labour.
  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. Human sacrifice is depicted in Classic Maya art, is mentioned in Classic period hieroglyphic texts and has been verified archaeologically by analysis of skeletal remains from the Classic and Postclassic (c. AD 900–1524) periods. Additionally, human sacrifice is described in a number of late Maya and early Spanish colonial texts, including the Madrid Codex, the Kʼicheʼ epic Popol Vuh, the Kʼicheʼ Título de Totonicapán, the Kʼicheʼ language Rabinal Achi, the Annals of the Kaqchikels, the Yucatec Songs of Dzitbalche and Diego de Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán.
  A number of methods were employed by the Maya, the most common being decapitation and heart extraction. Additional forms of sacrifice included ritually shooting the victim with arrows, hurling sacrifices into a deep sinkhole, entombing alive to accompany a noble burial, tying the sacrifice into a ball for a ritual reenactment of the Mesoamerican ballgame and disembowelment.
caption: Sculpture in the Great Ballcourt at Chichen Itza depicting sacrifice by decapitation. The figure at left holds the severed head of the figure at right, who spouts blood in the form of serpents from his neck
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3247", "Image ImageLength": "1968", "Image Make": "Plustek", "Image Model": "OpticFilm 7600i", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "2400", "Image YResolution": "2400", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2009:11:11 22:05:49", "Image ExifOffset": "236", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "406", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8740", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:11:11 22:01:30", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3247", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1968"}