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1,300-Year-Old Mummy Found in Peru

Lima tomb pre-dates Incas

By Peter Fearon, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 27, 2008 4:50 AM CDT

(Newser) – Archaeologists have discovered an ancient mummy in a tomb from a culture that flourished in Peru before the Incas. A complete female mummy, along with the remains of two other adults and a child, have been found in the Wari burial site in a residential district of Lima, Reuters reports. The site dates from about 700 AD. The Wari people ruled what is now Peru for some 500 years.

A mask on the mummy's face with piercing blue orbs "startled me at first. I wasn't expecting to find anything like that," said one of the workers who helped unearth the tomb. The director of the ruins said the find was unique. "We'd discovered other tombs before, but they were damaged," she said. "Never had we found a whole tomb like this one—intact."

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An archeologist take notes at the site where a tomb from the Wari culture was discovered in a pyramid called Huaca Pucllana in the Peruvian capital of Lima. (AP Photo/ El Comercio Newspaper, Dante Piaggio)

A mummy mask with arresting eyes was discovered along with the body inside a tomb in a pyramid called Huaca Pucllana, Lima. (AP Photo/ El Comercio Newspaper, Dante Piaggio)

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Her face startled me at first. I wasn't expecting to find anything like that." - Miguel Angel, 19, who helped unearth the tomb.

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1,300-Year-Old Mummy Found in Peru