Why "sacrifice" and not murder?
> "People sacrifice that which is of most and greatest value to them," he explains.
But then:
> isotopic analysis indicates that they were not all drawn from local populations but likely came from different ethnic groups and regions of the Chimú Empire
To accept to have your own child taken from you and cut open to offer its heart to some angry God supposes an amount of "faith" difficult to imagine. Isn't it more likely, they were taken by force?
It's always strange when we assume ancient people would necessarily be superstitious; maybe some were, and some weren't.
Isn't it reasonable to think that mass killing would be a punishment inflicted on one group to another, following, say, a long war, or simply a conquest?
> "People sacrifice that which is of most and greatest value to them," he explains.
But then:
> isotopic analysis indicates that they were not all drawn from local populations but likely came from different ethnic groups and regions of the Chimú Empire
To accept to have your own child taken from you and cut open to offer its heart to some angry God supposes an amount of "faith" difficult to imagine. Isn't it more likely, they were taken by force?
It's always strange when we assume ancient people would necessarily be superstitious; maybe some were, and some weren't.
Isn't it reasonable to think that mass killing would be a punishment inflicted on one group to another, following, say, a long war, or simply a conquest?