Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/LIMA: Peruvian police made a surprise discovery when they searched a delivery man who they encountered at the archaeological site in Puno. The police found an ancient mummy inside his cooler bag.
According to the BBC, the person said he had been sharing his room with the bandaged ancient mummy and considered it “a kind of spiritual girlfriend.”
The delivery boy said he had put the remains in the bag to show them to his friends. He explained he kept “Juanita,” as he had nicknamed the ancient mummy, in a box in his room, next to the TV. He said that the mummy was owned by his father. He did not say how it had come into his father’s possession.
The Experts said that the body was between 600 and 800 years old, and it was that of an adult, a male rather than a woman, as the man who discovered it had assumed.
The mummified male was approximately 45-year-old at the time of his father’s death and 1.51m tall.
Ancient mummy
The ancient mummy was wrapped in bandages in the fetal position, which is typical of several of the pre-Hispanic burials in the place. Mummification was practiced by a variety of cultures in Peru prior the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. Few mummies were buried, and others were brought out and paraded during key festivals.
Police seized the ancient mummy carried in the cooler bag and handed it to the ministry of culture of Peru, which looks after the Peru heritage. The man transporting the mummy and his two friends, who were between 23 and 26 years old, were detained and investigated for possible crimes against the country’s cultural heritage.
