16 Stone Knives Found Near Maya Sacrificial Altar Made Mostly Out of Obsidian

(Photo : Unsplash / Florian Delée)

Discovering ancient artifacts often leads to a deeper understanding of the happenings around the site. This is exactly what happened when scientists dug up 16 stone knives made mostly out of obsidian.

Maya Sacrificial Altar Stone Knives

According to News Week, this is what happened around a sacrificial altar near an ancient Maya city, where archaeologists found sixteen stone knives. The discovery happened in Yucatán, a southern Mexican state, in Kulubá, a once prominent pre-hispanic settlement.

The discovery resulted in 16 knives, most of them made from obsidian. Out of the 16 knives, only three of them weren't obsidian and were made from flint.

According to the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) researchers, these knives were indeed intended to be used to perform a sort of offering. The ancient settlement of Kulubá is still home to multiple archaeological developments aside from its sacrificial altar.

The Kulubá also included residences, plazas, and a palace estimated to have been used between 600 to 1050 AD. The palace measured 6 meters tall, around 55 meters long, and around 15 meters wide.

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Ancient Maya Civilization

Yucatan Magazine describes Kulubá and its leadership style, reporting that it took the "iron fist" approach when ruling all of northeastern Yucatán. This was while the Maya civilization, as a whole, dominated southeastern Mexico and other parts of the world before the Spanish colonization.

The Maya also ruled Guatemala, Belize, and the western parts of El Salvador. Its civilization even stretched into Honduras. This civilization was mostly known for having its own writing system even before Columbian America.

Alfredo Barrera Rubio, an INAH researcher, said that the knives were integral to sacrifices, a huge part of the civilization's ritualistic character. News Week reports that the knives could've been used for both human or animal sacrifice.

Ancient Stone Knives

Christian Hernández González, the archaeologist who conducts extensive site research, said that the knives weren't ever used. However, they still included very interesting characteristics, especially regarding the materials used to craft them.

The researcher highlighted that the obsidian and flint were materials that couldn't be found in the Yucatán peninsula. This meant that they were only transported from places like central Mexico or Guatemala.

Smithsonian Magazine reports that for so long the archaeologists have assumed that obsidian blades along with other tools, like bone needles or stingray tails, were used in the context of rituals. While it's believed that they were used in bloodletting rituals, other researchers have also found other uses for these types of knives.

Researchers have also discovered that obsidian knives could have been used as kitchen knives. However, what could link the 16 recently-discovered knives to potential bloodletting rituals would be the fact that they were found near a sacrificial site.

Also, with many knives found in one sacrificial spot, researchers can assume that they would've been used for human sacrifices. Despite that, the researchers still maintain that the knives which were found were never used.