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EmbarrassedHelp t1_iuk2n0n wrote

Whenever I hear about ancient Mayans, I can't help but think of their absolutely horrific culture of human sacrifice:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Maya_culture

They liked to horrifically kill children:

> He said children were often thrown alive to their watery graves to please the Mayan rain god Chaac. Some of the children were ritually skinned or dismembered before being offered to the gods, he said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-sacrifice-idUSWRI32680820080123

Edit: Remove Aztec rituals that I confused for Mayan ones.

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MGD109 t1_iuk3j2k wrote

Yeah the Mayan's could be utterly brutal. But they also had a wealthy culture that made many strides in their own right.

Really their aren't many civilisations that weren't cruel in someway at this point in history. The one's that weren't, generally get crushed and conquered by the one's that are.

At the very least the Mayan's were utterly loveable compared to what their neighbours the Aztec's got up on that front.

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Salty_Drummer2687 t1_iuk97zr wrote

I think skinning children alive automatically disqualifies them from being utterly lovable. I can't think of many worse ways to die than being skinned alive.

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MGD109 t1_iukc19e wrote

The Aztec's once sacrificed over 80,000 people in the span of four days, to consecrate their pyramid.

They're methods of doing so ranged from ripping people's hearts out, to impaling them with arrows like a human pincushion deliberately non fatally so they would bleed out, to repeatedly dragging and throwing them onto a pyre.

Yeah they were worse than the Mayan's on that front.

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