Monday, September 2, 2019

Perú apocalypto, II

The archaeologists of Trujillo, which city now occupies Chimú capital ChanChan, are still pecking away at the child sacrifice burials. Last we heard was from Huanchaquito: at least 140 children (and two hundred llama-calves) were marched from ChanChan for a mile's walk, and at Huanchaquito the hearts were extracted. Now we're hearing from what I guess is the father-site, Huanchaco: 227 children there, buried facing the Pacific. They've figured out that the children died "in wet weather" so they're going with El Niño.

Laura Geggel had observed, of that first run, that the sacrifices weren't all local Chimú. I piped up last spring that this means that it was done by imperial forces.

I will go further: this Moloch-style butchery was done by the last Chimú for their own empire. I think that if it had been Inca (they took over in the 1470s) the victims should have come from the local elite, and not from the occupied provinces. And they wouldn't have hit just the children.

No comments:

Post a Comment