Luciano Cedillo, director of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History — which employs Ahuja — called the find "important and surprising."
In many pre-Hispanic cultures, prisoners of war or sacrificial victims were often decapitated or flayed. Most depictions show males, but some cultures depicted decapitated females as a symbol of fertility.
The blood or water flows from the necks of the two women in all directions, and into the belly button of a third, central figure depicted as an almost skeletal figure, neither male nor female.
The announcement came four days after archaeologists in Mexico City discovered a smaller monolith near Mexico City's main square, but the sculpture on that monument cannot yet be read because much of the stone remains buried.
The smaller monolith — it measures about 3.5 meters (yards) on its longest side — was probably erected in the closing years of the Aztec empire, between 1502 and 1521, when the Spaniards conquered Mexico.
Cedillo said the earth covering the stone could be removed by sometime next week, at which point experts could examine and evaluate the carvings, which some researchers believe could be dedicated to Tlaloc, a rain god.
Tlaloc is also depicted on one of two small altars discovered near the monolith in Mexico City's Templo Mayor ruins, the main worship site for the Aztecs, who founded the city in 1325. The other altar depicts a minor deity, possibly related to farming.
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