Pictures: Huge Peru Tomb Found—80 Bodies, Ring of Babies

Big Dig

Photograph courtesy Université libre de Bruxelles

Skeletons and ceramic grave goods emerge from the newfound burial site at Pachacamac, not far from Lima. The oblong chamber was dug into the ground and covered with a roof of reeds, which was supported by tree trunks, according to the study team.

Apparently overlooked by 16th-century Spanish conquistadors and subsequent grave looters, the tomb contains fabric traces that suggest the dead had been traditionally mummified.

"Some, if not all, of the bodies we found were originally wrapped in textiles," said Eeckhout, whose past work at Pachacamac was funded in part by the National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration. (National Geographic News is a division of the Society.)

(Related: "Pre-Inca Observatory Is Oldest in Americas, Study Says.")

Published June 6, 2012

False Head

Photograph courtesy Université libre de Bruxelles

Wooden "false heads"—including this one found in the new tomb—are trademarks of the Ychsma.

The five false heads in the newfound tomb didn't cover the faces of the deceased but were placed on or wedged into their curled-up mummies.

The artifacts "likely served to bestow an identity or persona to the [mummy] bundle and to aid in that individual's passage to the afterlife," University of Illinois anthropologist Matthew Piscitelli said via email.

(Related: "Tombs of Pre-Inca Elite Discovered Under Peru Pyramid.")

Published June 6, 2012

Grave Expression

Photograph courtesy Université libre de Bruxelles

Another face, this one in clay, stares out from a broken ceramic head excavated from the newfound Pachacamac tomb.

Before the Inca took over Pachacamac in the 15th century, the Ychsma had ruled the city for more than 500 years. The culture left their conquerors a vast complex of monumental buildings, including 18 mud-brick, stepped pyramids. (Find out how the Inca forged an empire.)

An important religious and pilgrimage center for nearly two millennia, Pachacamac "housed a powerful oracle, and several ancient groups constructed sacred structures and buried their dead among its many temples and cemeteries," said the University of Illinois's Piscitelli, who wasn't involved in the recent excavation and is also a National Geographic grantee.

(Related pictures: "'Unexpected' Male Found in Pre-Inca Tomb?")

Published June 6, 2012

Bundled Bodies

Photograph courtesy Université libre de Bruxelles

The adult dead in the newfound tomb were found in the fetal position, which may have represented "some kind of rebirth" to the Ychsma, excavation leader Eeckhout said.

About half the bodies in the tomb belonged to babies—signaling either ritual sacrifice or that they'd "died from natural causes and then were deposited in some place until the moment of the foundation of that tomb," Eeckhout said.

Physical evidence of sacrifice, he added, may be hard to spot on the tiny corpses, particularly in cases of suffocation. Signs of sacrifice have been found in the past on very well preserved Pachacamac infant remains, he added. "But in this case it is absolutely not sure."

There's no doubt, though, that animals were sacrificed, Eeckhout said. Guinea pigs appear to have been the favored offerings, but dogs and parts of llamas or alpacas have also been recovered from the tomb.

(Photos: Mummy Bundles, Child Sacrifices Found on Pyramid.)

Published June 6, 2012

Stairway to Heaven?

Illustration by H.M. Herget, National Geographic

An artist's conception shows Inca worshippers ascending the Temple of Pachacamac. In its Inca period, the Pacific-coast city remained a spiritual center—and even expanded.

Whereas the Ychsma domain likely included only local river valleys, pilgrims of the much more vast Inca Empire came to Pachacamac from as far away as 930 miles (1,500 kilometers), according to contemporary Spanish reports. "Huge facilities were built by the Incas for this big-scale pilgrimage," Eeckhout said.

The University of Illinois's Piscitelli added, "What's amazing about the site is that ... the [Ychsma] Pachacamac priests were still allowed to function independently of the Inca religious specialists and were even consulted by the Inca for advice."

Previously unearthed Ychsma skeletons suggest a high proportion of those buried at Pachacamac suffered from cancer, syphilis, and other serious conditions—backing up Inca-era testimony that the city was a "pre-Hispanic Lourdes," a font of supposed "miracle" cures, Eeckhout's team says.

Bones from the latest dig have yet to be analyzed for disease, but the simple grave trappings, which include copper and metal alloy items such bracelets, indicate that the dead were neither rich nor royal.   

"We consider it a cemetery of the common people," Eeckhout said.

(Also see "Lost Inca Gold.")

Published June 6, 2012

Brick by Brick

Photography by J. Enrique Molina, Alamy

Like most pre-Columbian cultures, the Ychsma left behind no written record, leaving archaeologists to puzzle out the culture's story from relics and ruins such as those at Pachacamac, shown above with a backdrop of modern development.

Other Ychsma sites—recognizable by their distinct architecture and artifacts—have been found nearby, Eeckhout said, but Pachacamac so far seems to have been their greatest settlement.

Despite his team's already 13-year excavation efforts, the Ychsma are still "one of the ancient cultures of Peru that remains to be explored," Eeckhout said.

The latest tomb finds, Piscitelli predicted,  "will yield great insights into the religious and ceremonial activities that took place at Pachacamac."

Published June 6, 2012

More Pictures: Human-Sacrifice Chamber Discovered in Peru

Photograph courtesy National Archaeological Museum of Brüning, Peru

Published June 6, 2012