Pre-Inca Graves Discovered in Peru

“The graves we found in these excavations belong to the year 1000 AD to 1440,” Pieter Van Dalen, an archaeologist at the National University of San Marcos in Lima, told Reuters news agency.

The cemeteries date back to the heyday of the Chancay people, who once inhabited the fertile valleys near the coast. Their name derives from the Chancay Valley, which is the main region they inhabited.

Little is known about this pre-Inca culture, and researchers hope to learn more from cemeteries, specifically from tombs belonging to the elite that have been found up to 5 meters (16.5 feet) underground. According to the team’s initial findings, they are designed with a lot of luxury. The dead were wrapped in cloth alongside decorated vases of various sizes.

The unearthed graves belong to people from different social classes, Van Dalen said.

skilled artisans

So far, the findings are consistent with what archaeologists already knew about the Chancay, known as talented artisans. Thousands of his textiles have survived to this day, which means they must have been produced on a large scale.

The fabrics are exquisitely crafted and dyed in shades of yellow and brown, as well as scarlet, lavender blue and olive green. Popular motifs were birds and a deity with a crescent-shaped headdress.

The ceramics also testify to Chancay’s artistic talent. The works are usually in black and white and feature geometric or highly simplified animal and human motifs. Large clay dolls, often represented as females, were also commonly produced.

For all their skill, however, the Chancay were apparently not great warriors. Historians surmise that in the early 15th century, the Chimu conquered their southern territories and that later the Inca finally subjugated them around 1450.

Waiting for new insights

Some 2,000 tombs have been discovered in the region in recent years, so archaeologists are hopeful that the 30 tombs found about 75 kilometers (45 miles) north of Peru’s capital, Lima, will provide new insights into the social structures and Chancay policies. civilization.

But first, the remains will be meticulously cleaned and carefully stored. Perhaps then they can reveal some secrets of the vanished world of Chancay.

This article was originally written in German.