Ancient Unlooted Royal Wari Tomb Discovered In Peru
Ancient Unlooted Royal Wari Tomb Discovered In Peru
June 27, 2013
A team of Polish and Peruvian researchers has discovered one of the most remarkable tombs in South America, and despite much excitement, the excavators knew they had to keep it a secret from the public, according to a National Geographic report.
The stunning find, an ancient imperial tomb of the Wari, had only first come to light in January 2010 while Milosz Giersz, an archaeologist at the University of Warsaw in Poland, and colleagues searched an area of El Castillo Huarmey, north of Lima, Peru. Using aerial imagery, Giersz and project co-director Roberto Pimentel Nita found an outline of a possible subterranean mausoleum between two large adobe-brick pyramids.
Upon the discovery, Giersz expressed that there was not much room for happiness as the area was constantly under threat from grave robbers. In fact, the site has been a popular hunting ground for thieves for decades. So, in order to keep looters from nabbing precious gold and silver artifacts from this 1,200-year-old “temple of the dead,” Giersz and Nita kept the find quiet.
“I had a nightmare about the possibility,” Giersz said in a statement.
The team dug quietly for months in one burial chamber, collecting more than a thousand artifacts, including gold and silver jewelry, bronze axes and gold tools. The team also uncovered the remains of three Wari queens as well as 60 other individuals.
More:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112884745/royal-wari-tomb-discovered-peru-unlooted-062713/
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Undisturbed ancient royal tomb discovered in Peru
Published: June 27, 2013 at 11:38 PM
LIMA, June 27 (UPI) -- An ancient, artifact-filled royal tomb of the Wari people has been discovered in a pyramid in Peru, archaeologists say.
The pre-Incan mausoleum, located at the El Castillo de Huarmey site 175 miles north of Lima, is the first to be found that hasn't been looted, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.
Among the more than 1,200 artifacts are gold- and silver-inlaid jewelry, ceremonial axes, looms and spindles, the newspaper said.
Milosz Giersz, an archaeologist with the University of Warsaw in Poland who headed the expedition, told the Times it holds an altar-like throne and the bodies of 63 people, mostly women. Giersz said the bodies were positioned sitting and wrapped in cloth. The archaeologists surmise some were likely human sacrifices, and three were thought to be Wari queens.
More:
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2013/06/27/Undisturbed-ancient-royal-tomb-discovered-in-Peru/UPI-47971372390698/#ixzz2XUQfgEfH
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Mummified women, sacrifices found in Peruvian tomb
4 hr ago | By Reuters
An ancient Peruvian tomb has revealed secrets about the empire that ruled the Andes before the Incas, including a greater role for women in political life.
LIMA — Archaeologists in Peru on Thursday said they have unearthed a massive royal tomb full of mummified women that provides clues about the enigmatic Wari empire that ruled the Andes long before their better-known Incan successors.
"For the first time in the history of archeology in Peru we have found an imperial tomb that belongs to the Wari empire and culture," lead archeologist Milosz Giersz said.
Researchers said the discovery will help them piece together life in the Andes centuries before the rise of the Incan empire, which was written about in detail by the conquering Spaniards.
The mausoleum, unearthed a few months ago at a coastal pyramid site called El Castillo de Huarmey 185 miles north of Lima, contained gold pieces, ceramics and 63 skeletons about 1,300 years old.
More:
http://news.msn.com/science-technology/mummified-women-sacrifices-found-in-peruvian-tomb
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A few images at:
http://peru21.pe/actualidad/castillo-huarmey-hallazgo-mas-importante-desde-sipan-2137681
First Unlooted Royal Tomb of Its Kind Unearthed in Peru
Three queens were buried with golden treasures, human sacrifices.
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Images of winged, supernatural beings adorn a pair of heavy gold-and-silver ear ornaments that one high-ranking
Wari woman wore to her grave in the imperial tomb at El Castillo de Huarmey. In all, the archaeological team found
the remains of 63 individuals, including three Wari queens. (See more pictures)
Photograph by Daniel Giannoni[/font]
It was a stunning discovery: the first unlooted imperial tomb of the Wari, the ancient civilization that built South America's earliest empire between 700 and 1000 A.D. Yet it wasn't happiness that Milosz Giersz felt when he first glimpsed gold in the dim recesses of the burial chamber in northern Peru.
Giersz, an archaeologist at the University of Warsaw in Poland, realized at once that if word leaked out that his Polish-Peruvian team had discovered a 1,200-year-old "temple of the dead" filled with precious gold and silver artifacts, looters would descend on the site in droves. "I had a nightmare about the possibility," says Giersz.
So Giersz and project co-director Roberto Pimentel Nita kept their discovery secret. Digging quietly for months in one of the burial chambers, the archaeologists collected more than a thousand artifacts, including sophisticated gold and silver jewelry, bronze axes, and gold tools, along with the bodies of three Wari queens and 60 other individuals, some of whom were probably human sacrifices. (See more: "First Pictures: Peru's Rare, Unlooted Royal Tomb"
Peru's Minister of Culture and other dignitaries will officially announce the discovery today at a press conference at the site. Krzysztof Makowski Hanula, an archaeologist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru in Lima and the project's scientific adviser, said the newly unearthed temple of the dead "is like a pantheon, like a mausoleum of all the Wari nobility in the region."
Overlooked Empire
The Wari lords have long been overshadowed by the later Inca, whose achievements were extensively documented by their Spanish conquerors. But in the 8th and 9th centuries A.D., the Wari built an empire that spanned much of present-day Peru. Their Andean capital, Huari, became one of the world's great cities. At its zenith, Huari boasted a population conservatively estimated at about 40,000 people. Paris, by comparison, had just 25,000 residents at the time.
More:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130627-peru-archaeology-wari-south-america-human-sacrifice-royal-ancient-world/
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First Pictures: Peru’s Rare, Unlooted Royal Tomb
More:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/pictures/130627-peru-archaeology-wari-south-america-human-sacrifice-royal-ancient-world-photos/