Ancient Graveyard in Peru Yields Religious Sacrifices

A well-preserved graveyard possibly a thousand years old has been discovered at an archeological complex of Incan and pre-Incan temples on the outskirts of the Peruvian capital, experts said this week.

Archeologists have unearthed the remains of 30 people, including 19 still intact as mummies, dating from between 1000 and 1500, making them some of the oldest mummies ever found in Peru.

They said the site had not been plundered by grave robbers and that some of the dead were religious sacrifices.

“It is an exceptional discovery that shows the remains of several cultures buried on top of each other,” said archeologist Peter Eeckhout of Brussels Free University, who led the excavation project.

It was not clear to which cultures the mummies belonged but they were likely to have been farmers and craftsmen who lived about five centuries ago.

The graveyard, which stretches over a 220-square-yard area, is within the boundaries of the Pachacamac archeological complex 19 miles south of Lima.

Four of the mummies probably died as sacrifices and were either buried alive, killed by blows to the head or strangled, archeologists said. One was a boy about 12 whose skull was cracked at the front, probably by a heavy blow. A mummified man about 35 years old with a rope around his neck was also among those sacrificed.