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Aztec Death Whistles and the Terrifying History Behind Them

The Terror of the Aztecs: The Aztec Death Whistle

Sal
5 min readOct 21, 2022
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International)

The vast majority of individuals view whistles as innocent playthings. Whistles are extremely common and may be discovered in virtually every design as well as in cultures all over the world! For eons, these snippets of ridiculousness have been passed down as if they were sacred, like relics from our youth.

In 1999, as archaeologists were excavating the temple of Tlatelolco in Mexico City, they discovered the skeleton of a 20-year-old sacrificial victim clutching two skull-shaped whistles. However, they did not give it much thought at the time because of the precise reason mentioned above. They were categorized as toys or ornaments since that is how they were thought of, and they were kept in storage facilities.

It wasn’t until many years later, when a researcher tried to blow his way into one, that he realized how horrifying they were! He found out that the bizarre clay skull thing made a terrible noise that he characterized as being like “the wail of a thousand corpses.” That was precisely how creepy it was.

Death Whistle of the Aztecs

Having said that, the Aztecs were masters at producing a great deal of noise. They used conch shells for

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Sal
Sal

Written by Sal

I am a History Educator and a Lifelong Learner!

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