DNA Rewrites 400-Year-Old Maya Legend: All 64 Sacrificed Children at Chichén Itzá Were Boys

aakashgupta · x · 2026-10-04

How the Story Kept Flipping

• The legend: A 16th-century Spanish bishop wrote that Maya priests hurled virgin girls into the sacred cenote at Chichén Itzá to plead with the rain god — a story that held for 400 years.
• The bones: In 1904 Thompson's dredge pulled up thousands of artifacts and hundreds of human bones. Harvard anthropologist Earnest Hooton found men, women, and many children. Mexican researchers later re-examined 127 skeletons: over 80% were kids aged 3–11.
• The DNA: In 2024, a Max Planck/Harvard team sequenced 64 children buried in an underground chamber beside the cenote. Every one was male; a quarter were close relatives, including two pairs of identical twins.

The molecular evidence overturns the popular 'virgin sacrifice' narrative and points to a ritual involving boys, likely tied to rain-god worship.

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