a broad platform upon which the actual skulls of sacrificial victims were exhibited. The appeared during the final phases of civilization at Tula, which was destroyed around 1200. Maya Other examples are indicated from Maya civilization sites such as Uxmal and other Puuc region sites of the Yucatán, dating from around the late 9th-century decline of the Maya Classical Era. A particularly fine and intact inscription example survives at the extensive Chichen Itza site. Human sacrifice on a large scale was introduced to the Maya by the Toltecs from the appearances of the by the Chichen Itza ball courts. Six ball court reliefs at Chichen Itza depict the decapitation of a ball player; it seems that the losers would be beheaded and would have their skulls placed on the . Aztec era The word is Nahuatl and was used by the Aztecs to refer to the skull-racks found in many Aztec cities; The first and most prominent example is the (Great Skull-rack) located in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and described by the early conquistadors. There were at least five more skull racks in Tenochtitlan but by all accounts they were much smaller. According to Bernal Díaz del Castillo's eye-witness account, the , written several decades after the event, after Hernán Cortés's expedition was forced to make their initial retreat from Tenochtitlan, the Aztecs erected a makeshift to display the severed heads of men and horses they had captured from the invaders. This is depicted in the twelfth book of the Florentine Codex. This taunting is also depicted in an Aztec codex which relates the story, and the subsequent battles which led to the eventual capture of the city by the Spanish forces and their allies. During the stay of Cortes's expedition in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan (initially as guest-captives of the Emperor Moctezuma II, before the battle which would lead to the conquest), they reported a wooden altar adorned with the skulls from recent sacrifices. Within the complex of the Templo Mayor itself, a relief in stucco depicted these sacrifices; the remains of this relief have survived and may now be seen in the ruins in the Zócalo of present-day Mexico City. Preparation of Excavations at Templo Mayor in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan have revealed many skulls belonging to women and children, in addition to those of men, a demonstration of the diversity of the human sacrifices in Aztec