Aztec Death Whistle

In the late 1990s, while excavating a temple dedicated to Ehecatl, archeologists uncovered the remains of a 20-year-old boy, beheaded and squatting at the base of the temple's main stairway.

What made the Mexico City discovery so remarkable was that the skeleton of the human sacrifice was found clutching a pair of musical instruments in each hand. They were small, ceramic whistles decorated with a menacing skull's face.

As the archeologists quickly realized, the skull image represented Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec god of the underworld and of death itself.

Death whistles undoubtedly had ritual and ceremonial significance, and that they may have been used to guide the spirits of the dead through the afterlife.

Some theorize that the whistles were used in battle to terrify the enemy.

TOUCH the whistle and imagine that battlefield - I can envision this theory to be true.