Mexico finds 8 sacrificial victims at Gulf coast pyramid

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Archaeologists in Mexico said Wednesday they have found 13 buried sets of human remains, eight of which appear to be young men who were apparently decapitated as part of a ceremony to consecrate a temple.

Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History said the skeletal remains may be as much as 2,000 years old. Ceremonial offerings of hundreds of beads, arrowheads and rings made of shells were with the remains.

They were found at a Mayan ruin site known as Moral-Reforma in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco. The site apparently functioned as a stop on a river trade route connecting the Mayan kingdoms of the Yucatan and Central America with other cultures on the Gulf coast.

The institute said the remains of the eight sacrificial victims appear to have been hacked up and dispersed in an area at the foot of the pyramidal temple, because the bones were found scattered.

Another group of bones was found at the same site that might come from hundreds of years later.

The Associated Press