Mystery in a bundle

When we think of mummies, we tend to think of Egypt, yet Peru is estimated to hold tens of thousands of them in her sands and her mountains. Often they are preserved in bundles, some holding a single individual, although one bundle from the Rimac valley held seven individuals.

The Cajamarquilla bundle contained one male mummy (which was bald, and that is unusual), many textile wraps, silver armlets, a beautiful necklace of metal discs, and a few additional discs scattered around the neck and upper bundle area. He was found on the lower part of a major step pyramid at the Cajamarquilla site, facing east. He is very important in that he is one of only a handful of surviving mummies at this site, which has been hit hard by grave robbers.

Cajamarquilla is a site in and around what is now Lima, the Peruvian capital. Other excavation sites in the Rimac valley have also proven to be important. For example, Pachacamac was first excavated in the late 19th century by Max Ule, the father of South American archaeology. Here, hundreds of mummies and artefacts have been excavated and, unfortunately, distributed to many places throughout the world. Puruchuco, on the outskirts of Lima, has been recently excavated by Guillermo Cock, who made valiant efforts to rescue nearly 2,000 mummies from the urban sprawl.

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Mystery in a bundle mummy wrapped up

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