by Padre Art

Created on: February 22, 2009

The large adobe brick pyramid called El Brujo, once brightly painted, now sits crumbling on its hilltop site. This area known as Huaca Cao Viejo was devoted to religious functions of the Moche civilization of Peru. It had long been known as a burial ground and as such had been pillaged for centuries. The Moche were the builders of the largest adobe brick pyramid in South America, the Pyramid of the Sun near Trujillo. This pyramid, El Brujo, had been the scene of human sacrifice and was a tomb for four of the Moche elite and two of their victims as well.

Most of the graves had been looted and a test hole had been dug into the pyramid itself but had not gone all the way through the many meters of brick covering the rectangular tomb containing the most mysterious mummy yet unearthed of the tens of thousands found in Chile and Peru. When Peruvian archaeologists led by Regulo Franco finally opened the tomb in 2005 they found three mummified males, the oldest one dating from 250-350 AD and having the skeleton of a strangled sacrifice next to it, as well as the mysterious Lady of Cao and her teen-aged sacrificial victim.

Radio-carbon tests of the rope used to strangle the sacrifice placed the burial date of the woman at 450 AD, almost 1,000 years before the Inca ruled this same region. The size of the mummified bundle is an indicator of the social status the deceased had during life and this woman was obviously ranked among the supreme.

That alone was unusual as was her place of burial. The closer to the temple center a person was buried the more important they were. To be buried inside the central pyramid she had to be a queen or high priestess or had attained her social status in some unusual way. Just how she had done so became more of a mystery as the researchers unraveled the hundreds of yards of the still white cotton cloth that enclosed her and the ceremonial items that accompanied the body.

After removing the cane mat covering her and the golden bowl that covered the embroidered face on the outer most cloth covering, the first items that came to light were two gigantic war clubs the length of the entire mummy. Until that moment no woman had yet been found buried with weapons of war and with further unwinding of the cotton cocoon a total of twenty three spear throwers were also revealed.

When the unwinding neared the actual body, items more usually associated with a female burial were exposed. Necklaces, earrings and nose ornaments made of gold, silver, copper, lapis lazuli and quartz crystal made their appearance. Even with all of these curious finds, it is the body itself that has raised the most questions.

The body, daubed with cinnabar, was a woman four feet eight inches tall in her late twenties with long braided hair and a full set of healthy teeth. She also sported bold tattoos on her wrists, forearms, shoulders, legs and feet. The unusual and unique designs of the tattooing added to the mystery. She had given birth to at least one child and her death in her late twenties was an early one, for the Moche were known to live to an age of 60-70 years on average.

The walls of the tomb that enclosed her and her companions in death had been painted with a deity unknown anywhere. Eight versions of the same fanged creature with splayed limbs covered the walls and each image was flanked by snakes and condors. Was she a warrior-queen, a priestess-warrior or maybe the weapons were buried with her to indicate the devotion of her personal guard? Much yet remains to be discovered about the mysterious mummy of El Brujo.

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