Dismembered and disfigured: they found in Zultepec the remains of Spaniards killed during the conquest

New research suggests an Aztec allied city disfigured in rituals the bodies of Spanish captives in one of the worst defeats of the Spanish conquest, between 1519 and 1521, experts said Wednesday.

The heads of the Spanish women in captivity were suspended in rows of skulls beside those of the men. An badysis of the bones revealed that women were pregnantand in pre-Hispanic practice they could be described as "warriors". Another sacrifice offered the body of a woman who was cut in half. His remains appeared near a boy of about 3 years old who was dismembered.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History indicated that the offers appeared in a search at Zultepec-Tecoaque, east of Mexico City. Zultepec was a city allied to the Aztecs who, in 1520, captured a caravan closely 15 Spanish men, 50 women and 10 children, in addition to 45 soldiers among Cubans of African and indigenous descent and about 350 allies of indigenous communities. All were apparently slaughtered for several months.

The dismemberments were not acts of revenge. According to experts, the inhabitants of Zultepec were recreating imitating mythological scenes with bodies.

"The inhabitants of Zultepec they recreated the myths of creation", explained archeologist Enrique Martinez.

For example, a Spanish man was dismembered and burned to represent the fate of the gods of the Aztec era, according to the myth called "The fifth sun".

The convoy consisted of people sent from Cuba to a second expedition, one year after the first landing of Hernán Cortés in 1519 and going to the Aztec capital with supplies and goods from the conquerors. Cortes had been forced to leave the caravan to rescue his troops from an uprising that had taken place in the present-day Mexico City.

The investigators claimed that the convoy members had been imprisoned in cells without doors, where they had been fed for six months. Gradually, the city sacrificed them and apparently ate horses, men and women. The pigs that the Spaniards wore, however, aroused so much suspicion and mistrust that they were killed whole and did not consume them.

In contrast, the skeletons of Europeans have been broken and have marks indicating that the flesh has been removed from the bones.

The city took the name of Tecoaque, which means "the place where they were eaten" in Nahuatl, the Aztec language.

When Cortes knew what had happened to his followers, he sent troops there for an expedition to punish the kidnappers. The inhabitants tried to hide the remains of the Spaniards by throwing them into shallow wells and removing them from the city.

Cortés went to conquer the Aztec capital in 1521.

Mexico celebrates the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the conquest in 2019, by organizing a special series of research and academic conferences.