Are the world’s oldest mummies being damaged by a changing climate?
Are the world’s oldest mummies being damaged by a changing climate?
The Chinchorro people of Chile preserved bodies long before the Egyptians. But their remains may be falling foul of a very modern problem
Chris Mooney for the Washington Post
Saturday 14 March 2015 06.00 EDT
Some seven millennia ago or more, a group of people called the Chinchorro lived along the coasts of northern Chile and southern Peru. Their lives revolved around fishing from the rich Pacific waters, even as a uniquely arid desert – the Atacama – lay inland behind them.
The Chinchorro were unique in many ways, but perhaps most of all in their burial practices. Several thousands of years before the Egyptians, they were mummifying their dead – creating the oldest known mummies on Earth – and doing so in a truly equal fashion. “Whereas the Egyptians considered only kings and other exalted citizens worthy of mummification, the Chinchorro accorded everyone in the community, regardless of age or status, this sacred rite,” wrote Bernardo Arriaza, an expert on the mummies, which were first discovered in the Atacama desert in 1917.
Since then hundreds of mummies have been unearthed, with more still in the ground being uncovered regularly. But lately, there’s been a problem. The specimens – more than 100 are held at a museum of the Universidad de Tarapacá in Arica, Chile – have started to degrade. “The tissue change is reflected in the appearance of dark and bright spots,” explained Marcela Sepulveda, an archaeologist at the Universidad de Tarapacá.
Indoors, the change has been slow, but outdoors, mummies are being discovered already damaged, said Sepulveda. “When you excavate mummies you can see that degradation is already there,” she said. And the suspected reason? A changing climate.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/14/chinchorro-mummies-chile-climate-change