High-Level Mummies
A rare undisturbed tomb atop an ancient pyramid in Lima, Peru, has yielded four 1,150-year-old, well-bundled mummies of the Wari culture, archaeologists announced on October 20.
The mummies include what appear to be an elite woman and three children, who may have been sacrificed to accompany her into the afterlife, according to Isabel Flores Espinosa, excavation director at the Huaca Pucllana archaeological site.
The Wari civilization spread along the central coast of Peru beginning around A.D. 700. At Huaca Pucllana, they replaced the Lima culture before being replaced themselves by the ascendant Inca.
(Learn about an ancient Wari brewery.)
—John Roach
Photos: Mummy Bundles, Child Sacrifices Found on Pyramid
Wearing a false head, a bundled mummy—and three child sacrifices—emerge from an urban pyramid in Peru.
