Ancient mass grave filled with the skeletons of 270 children sacrificed to the gods discovered in Peru

THE REMAINS of nearly 270 children sacrificed to the gods 500 years ago have been found in a gruesome ancient mass grave.

The innocent victims were all aged between five and 14 when they were slaughtered at the same time in Peru’s northern coastal region.

Members of the country’s Chimú tribe carried out the massacre, which is the largest mass child sacrifice event in world history.

The children’s ruptured remains contained cuts to their breastbones, which are believed to have been made by a ceremonial knife.

Dislocated rib cages suggest whoever carried out the bloody sacrifices tried to tear out the hearts of each victim.

It is thought the children were sacrificed to the gods to prevent further floods caused by the El Nino storms which ravaged the Peruvian coastline.

The mass grave was first discovered in April 2018 when scientists stumbled upon a horrific sacrificial scene that featured the skeletons of 137 children.

Since then the team has uncovered the remains of 132 more youngsters, taking the total to 269.

Before the grave’s discovery, the world’s largest known child sacrifice ritual was at a temple near Mexico City, where 42 children were murdered 600 years ago.

A staggering 260 young llamas were also killed as part of the sacrifice at the Peruvian grave, which is near modern-day Trujillo.

Scientists have spent the past nine months trying to piece together what drove the Chimú to commit such a ghastly crime.

They think the El Nino storms ravaged the civilisation’s fisheries and complex irrigation systems used for farming, leaving thousands starving to death across its 300-miles territory.

Chimú priests and political leaders ordered the sacrifice in a desperate attempt to appease the gods and save the tribe.

“This number of children, this number of animals – it would have been a massive investment on behalf of the state,” team member Professor Gabriel Prieto told National Geographic, which is funding the research.

“They were possibly offering the gods the most important thing they had as a society,” said Professor Gabriel Prieto, of the National University of Trujillo, who led the excavation.

“Llamas were also very important because these people had no other beasts of burden; they were a fundamental part of the economy.”

Prieto revealed all of the children were buried facing the sea, while the llamas faced the Andes mountains to the east.

“Reports of very large sacrifices are known from other parts of the world, but it is difficult to know if the numbers are exaggerated or not,” Quilter said.

Quilter is heading a team of scientists who will analyse DNA samples from the remains to see if they were related and figure out which areas of the Chimú empire they came from.

Several ancient cultures including the Mayas, Aztecs and Incas practised human sacrifices, but the mass sacrifice of children has rarely been documented.

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