The scream of a thousand corpses: Horrifying sounds of the Aztec death whistle

The Aztec death whistle, sometimes described as “the scream of thousand corpses” is a frightening sound indeed. The skull-shaped whistles, discovered only 20 years ago by archaeologists, were dismissed as toys or burial trinkets. THAT IS, until someone decided to blow into one and… oh my god that horrifying sound came out.

Archaeologists and historians still aren’t exactly sure what the Aztec whistles were specifically used for. Some suggest the terrifying sound the whistles make were used as a weapon of psychological warfare to scare the shit out of their enemies. Imagine hundreds of these whistles going off at the same time. Horrifying, right? Others suggest these whistles were used as a sendoff to the dead during burial ceremonies or perhaps for human sacrifices.

The video below, lets you hear what a single Aztec death whistle sounds like and then imagines what hundreds of these things going off at once might have sounded like.