Sacrificial rituals featuring human heart extraction were a prevalent religious practice throughout ancient Mesoamerican societies, it was a way of establishing a mystic connection between humans and the gods.
Stories from both the oral tradition and chronicles of the time remark the importance of this practice: the sacrificed victims were either volunteers or prisoners captured in the Flower Wars.
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Human sacrifices were usually performed at sunrise or at midday, in accordance with the belief that blood replenished the solar cycle that gives life to the world.
However, there was a very special ceremony that was performed at midnight.
The ritual of New Fire was celebrated every 52 years on the Huizachtepet, today called Cerro de la Estrella (Hill of the Star), on Iztapalapa, in order to bless the coming Period; in this ritual, a human victim was offered, but only after all the fires on all of Tenochtitlan and its surroundings were put out.
Once the sacrifice was completed, a fire was lit over the victim's head, which would then be shared throughout the city while everyone anxiously awaited the break of a new dawn, which would kickstart the next 52-years period and the endurance of the Fifth Sun.
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