When the Aztecs dominated central Mexico, a blood-curdling sound like a human scream played through a small whistle. Luis Aceves via Unsplash In cultures around the world, instruments have brought ...

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 Communications ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. During ritual ceremonies, the ancient Aztec civilization used a “death whistle” — a haunting instrument shaped like a human skull.

Its fear-splitting screech reverberates throughout space and time. Swiss and Norwegian neuroscientists have discovered that the ancient Aztec death whistle — often credited with emitting the scariest ...