The legend of the Aztec Jaguar Warriors

You probably might recognize this face. He is Zero Wolf, the Mayan chieftain, a character played by Raoul Max Trujillo in the movie Apocalypto (2006, dir. Mel Gibson). Zero Wolf is most probably a Yucatan Mayan who sets out to hunt men for an eventual human sacrifice, seen here wearing a costume of a wolf skull over his head. He has a wooden club with something studded on either sides of it. Tattoos run on his chest, hands and legs. The armor is made of thick animal skin and bones — ornate with jaw bones— possibly human. But is this how the Mayans and Aztec warriors looked like ?

Though there are some critical historical inaccuracies when it comes to costumes and the depiction of mass human sacrifices by the Mayans in the movie — (mass human sacrifice was more of an Aztec ritual )— it (the movie) does go into depths to pay attention to lot of detail even to the depiction of the weapons and the tattoos.

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Tags: Aztec Jaguar