In perhaps as few as one hundred years, the Inka Empire became the largest state ever formed by a native people anywhere in the Americas, dominating the western coast of South America by the early ...sixteenth century. Because the Inkas had no system of writing, it was left to Spanish and semi-indigenous authors to record the details of the religious rituals that the Inkas believed were vital for consolidating their conquests. Synthesizing these arresting accounts that span three centuries, Thomas Besom presents a wealth of descriptive data on the Inka practices of human sacrifice and mountain worship, supplemented by archaeological evidence. Of Summits and Sacrifice offers insight into the symbolic connections between landscape and life that underlay Inka religious beliefs. In vivid prose, Besom links significant details, ranging from the reasons for cyclical sacrificial rites to the varieties of mountain deities, producing a uniquely powerful cultural history.
Teotihuacan was one of the earliest and more populous preColumbian cities, and the Feathered Serpent was its vital monument, erected circa 200 AD. This work explores the religious meanings and ...political implications of the pyramid with meticulous and thorough analyses of substantially new excavation data. Challenging the traditional view of the city as a legendary, sacred, or anonymously-governed centre, the book provides significant new insights on the Teotihuacan polity and society. It provides interpretations on the pyramid's location, architecture, sculptures, iconography, mass sacrificial graves and rich symbolic offerings, and concludes that the pyramid commemorated the accession of rulers who were inscribed to govern with military force on behalf of the gods. This archaeological examination of the monument shows it to be the physical manifestation of state ideologies such as the symbolism of human sacrifice, militarism, and individual-centred divine authority, ideologies which were later diffused among other Mesoamerican urban centres.
In the mountainous interior of the Himalaya, a highland peasant transforms into a redeemer by cutting holes (chidra) in the social fabric to be delivered to the gods through his body as sacrificial ...victim. Closely observing this unique ritual-spectacle, CHIDRA. examines how men, gods, and mediums handle the dangerous substance of actions (karma) at the frontier of the Hindu cultural sphere. CHIDRA (2018) is the product of a collaboration between documentary filmmaker Nadav Harel and Himalayan specialist Arik Moran. The movie follows a transmuted human sacrifice ritual that is unique to the Indo-Tibetan frontier valley of Kullu in Himachal Pradesh, India. By steadily focusing on the expiatory methods that are enacted during this ritual-spectacle, CHIDRA explores the psychological and social constructs surrounding the communal cleansing of sin at the frontier of the Hindu cultural zone. For a detailed analysis of the ritual, see Moran (2018), The Invisible Path of Karma in a Himalayan Purificatory Rite. On the charter myth and probable origins of the ritual specialists, see Moran (2021), When the Nars descended from Heaven.
La actitud de las futuras víctimas ante su destino sacrificial ha sido interpretada de muy distintas maneras: el cumplimiento de una función cósmica para alimentar al Sol y a la Tierra, la aceptación ...en virtud de un fatalismo sostenido por la creencia en un destino ineluctable o el sometimiento a un sistema político que aterrorizaba a las poblaciones. Aunque son escasas las fuentes que describen el estado de ánimo de las víctimas, algunas representaciones en códices y, sobre todo, valiosos testimonios recopilados en español y en náhuatl en el siglo xvi dan cuenta de actitudes muy diversas por parte de los futuros sacrificados. Al considerar la edad, el género y el origen social de las víctimas, sus funciones según los contextos rituales--en ocasiones personifican a deidades--, así como las distintas valoraciones del acto sacrificial--desde la exaltación heroica hasta la asignación un destino nefasto--, es posible esbozar un panorama más completo y matizado de las actitudes de los mesoamericanos ante la práctica ritual del sacrificio.
Traditions of sacrifice exist in almost every human culture and often embody a society's most meaningful religious and symbolic acts. Ritual violence was particularly varied and enduring in the ...prehistoric South American Andes, where human lives, animals, and material objects were sacrificed in secular rites or as offerings to the divine. Spectacular discoveries of sacrificial sites containing the victims of violent rituals have drawn ever-increasing attention to ritual sacrifice within Andean archaeology. Responding to this interest, this volume provides the first regional overview of ritual killing on the pre-Hispanic north coast of Peru, where distinct forms and diverse trajectories of ritual violence developed during the final 1,800 years of prehistory.Presenting original research that blends empirical approaches, iconographic interpretations, and contextual analyses, the contributors address four linked themes—the historical development and regional variation of north coast sacrifice from the early first millennium AD to the European conquest; a continuum of ritual violence that spans people, animals, and objects; the broader ritual world of sacrifice, including rites both before and after violent offering; and the use of diverse scientific tools, archaeological information, and theoretical interpretations to study sacrifice. This research proposes a wide range of new questions that will shape the research agenda in the coming decades, while fostering a nuanced, scientific, and humanized approach to the archaeology of ritual violence that is applicable to archaeological contexts around the world.
In a special precinct dedicated to ritual sacrifice at Huaca de la Luna on the north coast of Peru, about seventy-five men were killed and dismembered, their remains and body parts then carefully ...rearranged and left on the ground with numerous offerings. The discovery of this large sacrificial site—one of the most important sites of this type in the Americas—raises fundamental questions. Why was human sacrifice so central to Moche ideology and religion? And why is sacrifice so intimately related to the notions of warfare and capture? In this pioneering book, Steve Bourget marshals all the currently available information from the archaeology and visual culture of Huaca de la Luna as he seeks to understand the centrality of human sacrifice in Moche ideology and, more broadly, the role(s) of violence in the development of social complexity. He begins by providing a fully documented account of the archaeological contexts, demonstrating how closely interrelated these contexts are to the rest of Moche material culture, including its iconography, the regalia of its elite, and its monumental architecture. Bourget then probes the possible meanings of ritual violence and human sacrifice and their intimate connections with concepts of divinity, ancestry, and foreignness. He builds a convincing case that the iconography of ritual violence and the practice of human sacrifice at all the principal Moche ceremonial centers were the main devices used in the establishment and development of the Moche state.
What is the meaning of the martyr’s sacrifice? Is it true that the martyr imitates Christ? After the “one and eternal” sacrifice of Jesus why are from time to time new (and often quite numerous) ...sacrifices necessary? What is the underlying concept concerning the divinity? How do these ideas survive in present times?These are the kind of questions behind the inquiries in this monograph. The author investigates martyrdom as a (voluntary) human sacrifice and wishes to demonstrate how human sacrifice has been turned into martyrdom. The two emblematic figures of this transformation are Iphigeneia and Isaac. Pesthy argues that all the peoples in the environment in which Christianity came into being are characterized by a very ambiguous and hypocritical attitude toward human sacrifice: while in theory they condemn it as barbarian and belonging to bygone times, in concrete cases they accept, admire and practice it. The same attitude survives in Christianity in which martyrs replace the human sacrifice of olden days: they are real sacrifices, not symbolical ones. Our feelings about martyrs can be very different: we may admire their unbending courage and heroism or be irritated by their stubbornness, or even feel disgusted at the fanaticism with which they strove for death. But whatever our feelings may be, we must admit that a very strong motivation is needed to accept voluntarily or even seek death (and, in the majority of cases, a very painful death at that).
•The victims chewed coca leaves.•The victims were intoxicated by ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi).•The consumption of the ayahuasca could have been related to divination.•The Incas may have ...consciously used of the antidepression properties of ayahuasca.
Hallucinogenic plants and psychotropic stimulants performed an important role in the beliefs, rituals and divination practices in the ancient Andes. The aim of this article is to present the results of toxicological studies of two individuals immolated over 500 years ago during a capacocha ritual on the mountain of Ampato mountain in southern Peru. The capacocha was one of the most significant ceremonies carried out in the Inca Empire. During the ritual, the Incas sacrificed children and young women who were supposed to be beautiful and unblemished.
The hair and nails of two Ampato mummies were examined using LC-MS/MS for the presence of coca alkaloids and metabolites (cocaine, benzoylecgonine, cocaethylene), mescaline, tryptamine, harmaline and harmine. The results of the study show that during the last weeks of the victims’ lives, they chewed on coca leaves and were intoxicated by ayahuasca, a beverage made primarily from the Banisteriopsis caapi. In modern medicine, the properties of harmine led to the use of ayahuasca in the treatment of depression. Chroniclers mentioned the importance of the victims’ moods. The Incas may have consciously used the antidepressant properties of Banisteriopsis caapi to reduce the anxiety and depressive states of the victims.
Evidence for human sacrifice is found throughout the archaeological record of early civilizations, the ethnographic records of indigenous world cultures, and the texts of the most prolific ...contemporary religions. According to the social control hypothesis, human sacrifice legitimizes political authority and social class systems, functioning to stabilize such social stratification. Support for the social control hypothesis is largely limited to historical anecdotes of human sacrifice, where the causal claims have not been subject to rigorous quantitative cross-cultural tests. Here we test the social control hypothesis by applying Bayesian phylogenetic methods to a geographically and socially diverse sample of 93 traditional Austronesian cultures. We find strong support for models in which human sacrifice stabilizes social stratification once stratification has arisen, and promotes a shift to strictly inherited class systems. Whilst evolutionary theories of religion have focused on the functionality of prosocial and moral beliefs, our results reveal a darker link between religion and the evolution of modern hierarchical societies.
In 2023, prospection of a dried-out lake near Papowo Biskupie in north-central Poland identified substantial deposits of bronze artefacts. Excavation revealed further deposits and dozens of human ...skeletons that date from 1000–400 BC, suggesting that the site held particular significance as a place for sacrificial offerings in the Lusatian culture.
