"Ten ancient skeletons have been unearthed in Mexico this week [Feb. 2018] including a baby of around one-month-old. Ritualistically deformed, in that their skull shapes and teeth had been altered, they were arranged in a spiral shape with interlocking arms - confirming that they were buried in some sort of ancient death ritual. Estimated to be over 2,400-years old, this occult discovery is creating a typhoon of ideas in the archeological world." Source: Ancient Origins (2018).
"According to a BBC report, archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), who are excavating the grounds of the Pontifical University of Mexico (UPM) in the borough of Tlalpan in southern Mexico City, discovered the skeletons under a building that once served as 'classrooms, chapel as well as dorm room for the priests.' Bone dating revealed the people once belonged to the Pre-Classical period in Mexico around 1600 BC, predating the rise of the Aztec Empire. The bodies had been 'buried with cajetes and tecomates - earthenware bowls and pots of various sizes' and some of them grasped 'stones or ceramic spheres,' according to the BBC."
This charming contraption is regularly featured in sensationalistic stories and videos about ancient death machines. According to Wikipedia, "the brazen bull, bronze bull, or Sicilian bull, was a torture and execution device designed in ancient Greece. According to Diodorus Siculus, recounting the story in Bibliotheca historica, Perillos of Athens invented and proposed it to Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas, Sicily, as a new means of executing criminals." Assuming that it actually existed, the brazen bull may have had its origins in Carthaginian human sacrifices and ancient bull worship.
I haven't been able to find much information about the alleged inventor, Perillos of Athens, other than that he was a brass worker who was supposed to have invented and suggested the use of the Bull to the tyrant Phalaris. If true, Perillos must have had a sick mind and he apparently came to a well-deserved end when Phalaris (disgusted by Perillos's sadism) used him as a guinea pig to test his new invention. Perillos was cooked inside the bull for a while, then taken out alive and thrown off a cliff. That's the story, anyway.
The question is: How much of this story is actually true? The history is extremely murky, but as far as I can tell no archaeologist has ever uncovered hard evidence that the brass bull as described here ever existed. According to NNDB (a kind of Who's Who database of unknown reliability), "the story of the bull cannot be dismissed as pure invention. Pindar, who lived less than a century afterwards, expressly associates this instrument of torture with the name of the tyrant [Phalaris]. There was certainly a brazen bull at Agrigentum, which was carried off by the Carthaginians to Carthage, from where it was again taken by Scipio [Africanus?] and restored to Agrigentum."
Pindar was probably just passing on a story he found in the sources. Likewise for Diodorus Siculus, whose reliability as a historian is still a matter of debate. A very scholarly discussion of Diodorus Siculus's historical method in relation to the story of the bull of Phalaris can be found here [PDF]. As for the brass bull at Agrigentum mentioned above, I haven't been able to find any evidence that it was the same bull as the famous Brazen Bull or that the Agrigentum bull was anything more than a statue. The bull was sacred to several ancient cultures.
There's no limit to human cruelty, but I'm guessing that the story of the Brazen Bull is an early example of propaganda designed, in this case, to smear the reputation of Phalaris, a hated tyrant who was eventually overthrown for his viciousness (and supposedly burned inside his own torture device). According to Livius, "Phalaris became the prototype of an evil dictator" and the story of the invention of the brass bull "...was clearly invented to suggest what tyranny was all about, but there may be an element of historical truth."
Spanish only, unfortunately. Video shows the ruins of Zultepec / Tecoaque (see below).
"New research suggests an Aztec-allied town ceremonially disfigured the bodies of captive Spaniards [both men and women] during one of the worst defeats in the Spanish Conquest of 1519-21, experts said Wednesday." Source: Archaeology News Network (2019).
"The heads of the captive Spanish women were strung up on skull racks alongside those of men. An analysis of the bones revealed the women were pregnant, and in pre-Hispanic practice that may have qualified them as 'warriors.' Another sacrificial offering included one woman’s body that was cut in half near the remains of a dismembered child of 3 or 4."
Note: "The National Institute of Anthropology and History said the offerings were excavated at the Zultepec-Tecoaque site just east of Mexico City. Zultepec was an Aztec-allied town that in 1520 captured a convoy of about 15 male Spaniards, 50 women and 10 children, 45 foot soldiers who included Cubans of African and indigenous descent, and about 350 allies from indigenous groups in what is now Mexico. All were apparently sacrificed over the space of months."
The Huldremose Woman probably didn't die a natural death. If so, it doesn't look like she was strangled. According to the National Museum of Denmark, "Her hair was tied up with a long woolen cord, which was also wrapped around her neck several times. However, there are no marks on her throat or elsewhere, which can be interpreted as signs of strangulation. Perhaps instead the cord was of symbolic significance? Strangled people are known from other Danish bog finds. This applies to, amongst others, the bodies from Elling and Borremose, and the famous Tollund Man [who was hung in an apparent human sacrifice]."
Note: According to the National Museum of Denmark, one of the Huldremose Woman's arms was almost cut off before she died, but according to Wikipedia "it is thought that the arm was damaged by a shovel during excavation." Nobody knows exactly how she died, but "one possible interpretation is that she was killed and then placed in the bog as a sacrifice." (National Museum of Denmark)
"Experts say the site is the country's most important archaeological find for 40 years and have kept the exact location of the dig a secret to stave off thieves."
The remains of the lord or prince haven't been discovered. Archaeologists believe his ashes may be inside a cauldron found in the grave:
"The cauldron, the focal point of the mounded tomb, is surrounded by six women buried in a radial alignment from the pot, like the hands of a clock, The Times reports.
"Researchers say these may well have been concubines or widows belonging to the person being buried, but it remains a mystery as to whether they were slain for the burial or sacrificed themselves."
The video above shows the underground chamber of the Nekyomanteion, aka the Necromanteion, the "Oracle of the Dead," which the ancient Greeks believed was the door to Hades -- the Greek underworld, not the Hell of Christianity.
"The Necromanteion ... was an ancient Greek temple of necromancy devoted to Hades and [his wife, the goddess of he underworld] Persephone." (Wikipedia). "According to tradition, it was located on the banks of the Acheron river in Epirus, near the ancient city of Ephyra. The site was believed by devotees to be the door to Hades, the realm of the dead."
Note: Technically, Nekyomanteion is a term for "the prophecy-place of the dead," but it is also used as a place name.
"Although there were many oracles in ancient Greece, there is only one known oracle of the dead (1)," according to Atlas Obscura. "It was an entryway to the underworld, and a place where the shades of the dead could - under special circumstances - reveal the future to the living. It was the place that Homer sent Odysseus to seek advice from a long-dead oracle, and where he was horrified by visions of Hades, and it also appears in a sordid chapter of Herodotus' Histories."
Odysseus visits Hades (plus later encounter with Scylla and Charybdis). From the great 1997 miniseries The Odyssey. Highly recommended.
"Communicating with the dead, however, was not limited to the famous characters in the writings of the ancient Greek authors," according to Ancient Origins. "Regular citizens [also visited] the Necromanteion to seek counsel with the dead. They would first enter a dark chamber before performing certain elaborate rituals intended for their own protection and to gain the ability to communicate with the deceased. After this, a priest would lead them into a deeper chamber, where a ritual animal sacrifice would be performed, before passing through three gates which symbolised their entry into the Underworld. The celebrants would now be able to speak to the spirits of the Underworld."
(1) The Atlas Obscura is incorrect when it says that there was only one Greek oracle of the dead. According to the Ogden paper cited above, there were four major oracles: "Acheron in Thesprotia [the oracle discussed here -- named after the river], Avernus in Campania [Italy], Heracleia Pontica on the south coast of the Black Sea, and Tainaron at the tip of the Peloponnese's Mani Peninsula."
Note: As mentioned in the footnote above, the oracle on the Acheron river was located in Thesprotia. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised), the Thesproti were "a people mentioned in Homer's Odyssey with a king of Ephyra in the Archeron valley." They formed "a tribal state which entered the Epirote Alliance and the Epirote Confederacy, sided with Rome in 170 BC, and survived under the Roman settlement."
"Shimao ... is a Neolithic site in Shenmu County, Shaanxi, China. The site is located in the northern part of the Loess Plateau, on the southern edge of the Ordos Desert. It is dated to around 2000 BC, near the end of the Longshan period [next video], and is the largest known walled site of that period in China, at 400 ha [app. 988 acres]. The fortifications [double stone walls] of Shimao were originally believed by to be a section of the Great Wall of China, but the discovery of jade pieces prompted an archaeological investigation." (Wikipedia)
This is a spectacular Stone-Age site. According to Archaeology World, "The digging had revealed a 230 feet high pyramid surrounded by more than six miles of protective walls and an inner sanctum containing jade artifacts, painted murals, and gruesome evidence of human sacrifice." Around 80 human skulls, mainly of young girls, were discovered buried in six pits beneath the city's eastern wall.
This isn't a recent find. According to a 2013 AFP report, the sacrifices may have been conducted as part of religious or foundation ceremonies related to the construction of the city walls:
"There may have been an outbreak of mass violence or ethnic conflict in the region at the time since 'ancient people were prone to use their enemies or captives as sacrifices...'"
Video from 2018. Shimao was discovered in 1976.
"Shimao now is the largest known Neolithic settlement in China and none of the ancient Chinese texts mentions a city residing so far north of the 'cradle of Chinese Civilization'. It had an expanse of [approximately] 1000 acres and is larger than the Central Park of New York City. Its art and technology had influenced the northern regions and the future dynasties of China." (Archaeology World)
"Along with other discoveries at prehistoric sites, Shimao is forcing historians to rethink the origin of the Chinese civilization.
"According to the leader of the dig at Shimao, 'Shimao is one of the most important archaeological discoveries of this century.'"
"At an ancient site of human sacrifice in China, war captives may have been kept as slaves for years before they were killed, a new study finds." Source: Live Science (2017).
Archaeological excavations in China have revealed "that an extraordinary number of ritual human sacrifices were conducted during the Shang dynasty, which spanned from the 16th century B.C. to the 11th century B.C. It is the earliest dynasty in China for which archaeologists have evidence. For instance, sacrificial pits are common across the entire site of the last Shang capital, Yinxu, which researchers discovered in 1928 in central China's Henan Province. Scientists have estimated that over the course of about 200 years, more than 13,000 people were sacrificed in Yinxu, usually males ages 15 to 35, and that on average, each sacrificial ritual there likely claimed at least 50 human victims. The biggest sacrifice found so far killed at least 339 people."
There doesn't seem to be any doubt that the ancient Israelites were originally polytheistic. Back in the Iron and Early Bronze ages, Yahweh was a tribal weather/storm/warrior deity and the Israelites worshiped a multitude of gods:
"At that time the Israelites [originally Canaanites themselves] worshipped Yahweh alongside a variety of Canaanite gods and goddesses, including El, Asherah and Baal, but in time El and Yahweh became conflated, El-linked epithets such as El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh alone, and other gods and goddesses such as Baal and Asherah were absorbed into the Yahwistic religion." (Wikipedia)
None of this is too surprising. The famous Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac shows that the Israelites once practiced human sacrifice, a distinctly pagan ritual. In the current version of the story, God orders Abraham to sacrifice his son as a test of faith, but when Abraham starts to carry out the order God stops him and Abraham sacrifices a ram instead. Some scholars believe that the original version of this tale may have ended differently:
"Francesca Stavrakopoulou has speculated that it is possible that the story 'contains traces of a tradition in which Abraham does sacrifice Isaac.' R.E. Friedman argued that in the original ... story, Abraham may have carried out the sacrifice of Isaac, but that later repugnance at the idea of a human sacrifice led the redactor of JE to add the lines in which a ram is substituted for Isaac. Likewise, Terence Fretheim wrote that the text bears no specific mark of being a polemic against child sacrifice." (Wikipedia)
One way or another, the story shows that the Israelites once carried out ritual child sacrifices.
It would have been nice if this clip had actually shown the results of the examination of the infant skeleton.
The ancient Israelites also conducted animal sacrifices, a practice which is still recreated on special occasions in Israel today.
Video from 2016. Rituals like this are clear evidence of ancient Israelite paganism.