Chauchilla Cemetery is a

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...

that contains prehispanic mummified human remains and archeological artifacts, located south of the city of

Nazca Nazca (; sometimes spelled Nasca; possibly from ) is a city and system of valleys on the southern coast of Peru. The city of Nazca is the largest in the Nazca Province. The name is derived from the Nazca culture, which flourished in the area be ...

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

. The cemetery is associated with the

Nazca culture The Nazca culture (also Nasca) was the archaeological culture that flourished from beside the arid, southern coast of Peru in the river valleys of the Nazca, Rio Grande de Nazca drainage and the Ica Valley.''The Nasca'' by Helaine Silverman an ...

. The interments started c. 200 AD and continued until the 9th century. The forgotten cemetery was discovered in the 1920s. It had been plundered by grave robbers, but the remaining bodies have been preserved. A

resin A resin is a solid or highly viscous liquid that can be converted into a polymer. Resins may be biological or synthetic in origin, but are typically harvested from plants. Resins are mixtures of organic compounds, predominantly terpenes. Commo ...

used in the funeral rites is thought to have protected the bodies from

insects Insects (from Latin ') are hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of jointed ...

and

bacteria Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micr ...

. The cemetery was used as a setting for the film ''

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'' is a 2008 American action adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Koepp, based on a story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson. It is the fourth installm ...

''. The film depicted a fictional

burial chamber A chamber tomb is a tomb for burial used in many different cultures. In the case of individual burials, the chamber is thought to signify a higher status for the interred than a simple grave. Built from rock or sometimes wood, the chambers could ...

connected to the cemetery.

History

The cemetery was discovered in the 1920s, but had not been used since the 9th century AD. The cemetery includes many important burials over a period of 600 to 700 years. The start of the interments was in about 200 AD. It is important as a source of archaeology to the

. The cemetery has been extensively plundered by ''huaqueros'' (grave robbers) who have left human bones and pottery scattered around the area. Similar local cemeteries have been damaged to a greater extent. The site has been protected by Peruvian law since 1997 and tourists pay 8 soles (PEN) to take the two-hour tour of this ancient

necropolis A necropolis (: necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek ''nekropolis'' (). The term usually implies a separate burial site at a distan ...

. The site is by the Poroma riverbed and can be accessed via a dirt road from the

Panamerican Highway The Pan-American Highway is a vast network of roads that stretches about 30,000 kilometers (about 19,000 miles) from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in the northernmost part of North America to Ushuaia, Argentina, at the southern tip of South America. I ...

. In 1997, the majority of the scattered bones and plundered pottery were restored to the tombs.

Preservation of the bodies

The bodies are so remarkably preserved due mainly to the dry climate in the Peruvian Desert but the funeral rites were also a contributing factor. The bodies were clothed in embroidered cotton and then painted with a resin and kept in purpose-built

tomb A tomb ( ''tumbos'') or sepulchre () is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called '' immurement'', alth ...

s made from mud bricks. The resin is thought to have kept out insects and slowed bacteria trying to feed on the bodies. The nearby site of Estaquería may provide clues to the remarkable preservation of the numerous bodies in these cemeteries. At that site, archeologists found wooden pillars initially thought to have been used for astronomical sightings. However, it is now believed that the posts were used to dry bodies in a mummification process. This may account for the high degree of preservation seen in thousand-year-old bodies which still have hair and the remains of soft tissue, such as skin.

In popular culture

Chauchilla Cemetery is a prominent setting in ''

''. Though not called by name in the film, the cemetery is explicitly identified in the screenplay, promotional materials, and merchandise. This fictionalized version of the cemetery features a number of embellishments, including mask-wearing Nazcan guards and a hidden, underground burial chamber accessible through the barrows. The cemetery is depicted as being built on a promontory overlooking the Nazca Valley, offering the characters a view of the famous Nazca Lines.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chauchilla Cemetery Buildings and structures completed in the 3rd century 1920s archaeological discoveries Cemeteries in Peru Buildings and structures in the Department of Ica Tourist attractions in the Department of Ica Archaeological sites in Peru Nazca culture Necropoleis

History

Preservation of the bodies

In popular culture

See also

References