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A mass routine sacrifice of children to a rain god in 15th-century Mexico accompanied a lethal dry spell in the area, according to brand-new research study.

The skeletal remains of a minimum of 42 kids, ages 2 to 7, were found at Templo Mayor, the most considerable temple complex in Tenochtitlán, now Mexico City, in 1980 and 1981.

The skeletons, which were dealing with up and had their limbs contracted, were positioned inside ashlar boxes on a layer of sand. Some were decorated with finery such as lockets and had green stone beads in their mouths.

Now, brand-new research study has actually exposed that the sacrifices were likely an effort to end a terrific dry spell in the area by making offerings to the rain god Tláloc. The research study existed recently at the ninth Liberation through understanding conference: “Water and Life” at Mexico’s National College.

“At first, the Mexica state tried to mitigate its effects by opening the royal granaries to redistribute food among the neediest classes, while carrying out mass sacrifices of children in the Templo Mayor to calm the fury of the tlaloque [rain dwarves who were assistants of Tláloc],” Leonardo López Luján, an archaeologist and director of the National Institute of Anthropology and History’s (INAH) Templo Mayor Project, said at the meeting. “For a time, it dealt with the catastrophe by doing this, however the extreme period of the crisis made the state susceptible, requiring it to enable the mass exodus of its individuals.”

To discover why the mass offering was carried out, INAH scientists studied geological information together with entries in the Mexican Drought Atlas, which revealed that a significant dry spell happened throughout main Mexico in between 1452 and 1454.

Related: ‘An offering to stimulate the fields’: 76 kid sacrifice victims, all with their chests cut open, discovered at burial website in Peru