We may earn commission if you buy from a link. Why Trust Us? The Aztec death whistle is a mesoamerican instrument designed to imitate a human scream, and was often used during battle or at ...

Archaeologists have discovered numerous ceramic or clay whistles at Aztec sites, dubbed "death whistles" because of their distinctive skull shapes. A new paper published in the journal ...

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Ranging from a threatening hiss to a blood-curdling scream, the sound of the Aztec death whistle is as creepy as the skull-like appearance of the instrument that produces it. Brain scans suggest the ...

The mysterious ancient Aztec “death whistles” have a strange effect on the listener. Photo of skull-shaped death whistle. Credit: Jennysnest Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 The eerie, terrifying effect ...

History is filled with mysterious artifacts, and the Aztec death whistle is an intriguing example. Imagine a musical instrument with the sound of a terrifying, blood-curdling scream. This unusual ...

It’s on the tip of my tongue . . .

Brain scans of modern listeners suggest that Aztec whistles sound like human screams, which may have prepared sacrifice victims for their journey to the underworld. Ritual Aztec whistles produced ...

The Aztec death whistle sounds were also played to human listeners while their brains were being recorded. Brain regions belonging to the affective neural system responded strongly to the sound ...

But one of the most intriguing — and terrifying — of their creations was the Aztec death whistle, a skull-shaped ceramic instrument said to emit the most horrifying noise in history. Many have likened ...