#pre-inca

Child Mummies Found in Ancient Peru Tomb

In pre-Columbian Americas, ancient religions would sacrifice people and animals to appease deities

Six mummies thought to be the remains of children who were sacrificed by pre-Incan inhabitants of the Andes about 1,200 years ago have been discovered in Peru.

The bodies of seven adults, all wrapped in cloth, were found in the same tomb, in the archaeological complex of Cajamarquilla, east of Lima.

Ancient religions of the region — which were followed by the Aztec, Mayan and Incan empires and ethnic groups — believed that humans could be sacrificed to accompany recently deceased people into the “world of the dead,” or that sacrificing adults or even children could appease angry gods and intimidate enemies.

The discovery follows the finding of another tomb in November last year in the same area. Archaeologists at the National University of San Marcos discovered a pre-Incan tomb, thought to belong to a distinguished local trader.

Bones from animal offerings and clay pots were also found in the tomb, under the town square of Cajamarquilla, an ancient city.

Yomira Huaman, an archaeologist of the Investigation Project in the complex, said that recent techniques could help determine a link between the two sites and explain why the sacrifice occurred and what role it played in pre-Incan culture.

"What's happening here, why are there so many funeral bales of children? Further specialised investigations, such as those done with DNA, strontium and nitrogen, I think can help us understand,” she told Associated Press.

“That way, we can say what really took place in Cajamarquilla, and if it's associated with the tomb of the mummy [found in November last year].”

Pieter Van Dalen, who is responsible for the research project, said Andine societies believed that people did not disappear after death.

“We've found in relation to the tomb of the mummy of Cajamarquilla we discovered on November 2021, another 13 bodies [funerary bundles] of people, of which six are of children," said Mr Van Dalen.

"It appears that all of these people were sacrificed to accompany the mummy, the soul of the mummy on the path of the death to the final destination, according to the ideology of the Andean populations.”

In 2018, researchers made another major grisly discovery.

Scientists from the Universidad Nacional de Trujillo and Tulane University found the remains of over 200 Llamas and 140 children ― thought to be the world’s largest sacrifice of children, in Peru's northern Huanchaco district.

Researchers believe the brutal killings might have been spurred by a belief that increasingly extreme sacrifices would be needed to stop bad weather from destroying crops.

80 sets of remains were discovered at Pachacamac, an archaeological site not far from Lima, Peru. Pachacamac is the site of the largest known city built by the pre-Incan Ychsma (EESH-MA) people.

Peruvian archaeologists have discovered in a sacred pre-Incan site the bodies of 16 men from China who arrived to South America almost two centuries ago as semi-enslaved workers.

The secret tomb in Lima is the biggest burial site of Chinese migrants ever found in Peru and was presented Thursday to journalists. Found alongside the bony remains were opium pipes and other personal objects used by the migrants.

As many as 100,000 Chinese migrants arrived to Peru in the second half of the 19th century and for little pay performed back-breaking work on farms, building railroads and removing guano, which is bird excrement coveted as fertilizer.