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 ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Day of the Dead might sound like a solemn affair, but Mexico’s famous holiday is actually a lively commemoration of the departed.

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.

As its name suggests, an Aztec death whistle can make a most dreadful sound. But the effect depends on how it's played, explains musicologist and archaeologist Arnd Adje Both of the Free University of ...

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 ...

The findings support the hypothesis that such whistles may have been used in Aztec religious rituals or perhaps as mythological symbols. Click to expand... Or, given the fear it inflicts on those who ...