Even their skin was flayed – and worn by Aztec priests until it dried and dropped ... But one clue, say art critics, is the fierce aliveness of the gods and people in their art.

National Museum of Art, Mexico City ... is known as the Stone of Tizoc—an Aztec monument to one of its leaders. A priest saved the stone from destruction after it was unearthed in Mexico ...

The victim was stretched backwards over an altar, a temple assistant holding each limb, as we see in drawings done by Aztec artists immediately after the Spanish conquest. Then the priest slit ...

Barrera said accounts from the 1500s suggested the platform was also used in a colorful ceremony in which an Aztec priest would descend from the nearby pyramid with a snake made of paper and burn ...

Once every 52 years, Aztec priests let the fire die out. The high priest, wearing a turquoise mask representing Xiuhtecuhtli, would then perform a Xiuhtlalpilli, or "new fire ceremony", which ...