The stone of sacrifice of the Aztecs was placed on the playground in St. Petersburg

Erudite residents of Vasilevsky Island in St. Petersburg were surprised to find a sacrificial stone from the ancient Aztec culture, installed right on the playground. How writes “Fontanka”, the unusual decor of the new playground was noticed in the courtyard of the house on Korablestroiteley Street – here they decided to decorate the slide and swing in the Mexican style and at the same time, presumably, to honor the memory of the St. Petersburg scientist Yuri Knorozov, who deciphered the Mayan calendar.

Photos of the new playground appeared on social networks, when local officials and deputies took pictures on it, celebrating the opening of an object for 8 million rubles. Among the patterns of palm leaves, specific ornaments and images of monkeys, a wheel with patterns was noticed. However, the historian Yuri Nezhinsky drew public attention to the fact that this wheel has nothing to do with either the Maya or Knorozov. According to the historian, this is the Aztec Sun Stone.

“The Mesoamerican peoples loved to make human sacrifices,” Fontanka quotes the scientist’s statement.

According to Nezhinsky, the ancient Aztecs performed a ritual of sacrifice on the feast of the god Xipe-Totek, whose name in translation means “Lord-with-Flayed-Skin.” According to the researchers, during the ritual, the victim was tied to the Stone of the Sun, beaten with wooden swords, after which the skin was torn off and the heart was cut out. Further, the corpse of the unfortunate was placed in the center of the Stone of the Sun and a ritual dance was performed.

“The Aztecs did all this not from evil, but just the opposite,” Nezhinsky explained. “From their point of view, the world was constantly on the verge of collapse, and only the hearts of the victims <...> supported its existence. ” He added that the Maya also sacrificed people, but “compared to the Aztecs – very homeopathically.”

For St. Petersburg, this is already second blunder in honor of the memory of the ethnographer Knorozov: another Stone of the Sun instead of the Mayan calendar was also depicted on a memorial plaque on the house on Granite Street, where the scientist lived.