3000-year-old mummy unearthed in Peru
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Archeologists in Lima, Peru have found a mummy that is estimated to be 3,000 years old.
The mummy is speculated to be from the Manchay culture which inhabited the valleys of Lima between 1500 and 1000 BC. Students from San Marcos University were excavating the area when they found the skull and hair fragments in a cotton bundle.
According to archeologist Miguel Aguiller, the Manchay culture is associated with the construction of temples in U-shapes that pointed towards sunrise. He thinks the mummy was left or offered as a sacrifice during the last phase of the construction of the temple. The body had items like corn, coca leaves, and seeds with it which led to the conclusion that it was an offering. It was also wrapped in cloth made of cotton and vegetable fibre and placed in a tomb in the centre of the temple. The body had been laid out flat, another feature from the formative era of the Manchay culture.
The area, over time, had become a landfill. Aguilar told BBC that the team had to remove eight tonnes of trash from the location before searching for historic remains.