Peruvian police after searching a delivery man they noticed acting drunk at a Puno archaeological site, made a shocking discovery.
There was an ancient mummy in his cooler bag.
The bandaged mummy was described as “a kind of spiritual girlfriend” by the man who claimed to have been sharing his room it.
To impress his friends, he said, he had placed the remains in the bag.
He clarified that he kept the mummy, whom he had given the name “Juanita,” in a box in his room, next to the TV. He added that it was owned by his father, without specifying how it had come into his father’s possession.
Experts determined that the body was between 600 and 800 years old and that it belonged to an adult male, not a woman as the man who discovered it had assumed.
The mummified male was approximately 1.51m (4ft 11in) tall and over 45 years old at the time of his death
The mummy was wrapped in bandages and was positioned like many pre-Hispanic graves in the region: in the foetal position.
Before the Spanish conquistadors arrived, numerous cultures in what is now Peru practiced mummification. Some mummies were buried while others were brought out and paraded during key festivals.
The mummy concealed in the cooler bag was seized by police, who then turned it over to Peru’s ministry of culture, which is responsible for preserving the country’s history.
The man who was transporting it and his two friends, who range in age from 23 to 26, were detained and are currently being investigated for potential offenses against Peru’s cultural heritage.
Author-Roberta Appiah
