Peru Tourist Guide
Back

SOUTHERN PERU:
Pisco-Ica-Nasca: Paracas & Ballestas Islands     Huacachina     Nasca Lines     Chauchilla Cemetery    

Chauchilla Cemetery, Nasca Culture

The Nazca culture flourished in Peru from about 200 AC to 800 DC.

One of the common aspects of the pre-Inca and the Inca culture is that they created civilizations in very inhospitable places, like inaccessible high Andes Mountains or living in the middle of the desert.

The forgotten Culture of Nasca was discovered in the sands of the Nasca Desert, and it was brought to evidence both by grave robbers and by archeologists.

In the amazing Chauchilla Cemetery, bodies from the ancient Nasca people were preserved by natural mummification in the arid climate.

Through their habit of burying their people, this Culture left to us mummies, ceramics, colorful textiles, skull and devices, practically untouched.

Chauchilla is about 30 km from Nasca city and it impresses by the quantity of mummies still available for visiting.

Unfortunatelly, it was a known location by thiefs or tombs robbers, mainly in the last part of the XX century. They used to invade the tombs, picked the treasures and the mantles, and just left the mummies and some belongs of less importance exposed on the desert.

The poor population took advantage of this tombs. Some belongs, specially clothes, were sold in the market hicking almost U$ 20.000,00 ( and now you guess the purpose of so much robbery).

Note that specially european and north american collectors have act as receptors, incentiving robbers to keep theirs robbings.

Peruvian law are more severe now, and it is considered a serious crime to take out of the country such a cultural richness.

Until 1997, visitors just found entire skeletons, bones, ceramics and some artefacts simply leaved in the sun.

Because of those vandal acts, due to the poverty of the population, today the cemetery has enormous quantities of "eyes", which means, holes left as scars in the sand.

Happilly, this situation has changed. Scientists by Ica State and the local touristic industry organized themselves and reconstructed the burial sites in the way they were found and protected the area for visitation, which is now an official archeological zone.


Back