Archaeologists do not exclude that it may be a sort of "sacrificial escort" to accompany an important man in the afterlife
Six tiny skeletons wrapped in fabric bands were found inside the tomb of an important man, possibly a nobleman or politician, inside the Cajamarquilla excavation (about 24 miles east of Lima, Peru). According to the archaeologists who discovered them last November, they could represent "guardians" who accompanied man on his journey to the afterlife.
The little ones would have been mummified between 1000 and 1200 years ago and would have been placed in different parts of the entrance to the man's tomb, just to protect him. It would therefore be a question of sacrificed victims and not of children who died of natural causes. In addition to the remains of the young, the archaeologists also found the bones of seven adults (not mummified) and some animals.
As for the owner of the tomb, it would be a man aged between thirty and forty, buried tied with ropes and with his hands covering his face. Archaeologists have hypothesized that both the mummified children and the non-mummified adults could have had a kinship, or at least friendship, with the deceased.
We think that some of them could be the children, wife and closest servant of the mummy Cajamarquilla, who were sacrificed as part of the funeral rites that made him an important personage, whose soul had to be accompanied to cross the long road to his last resting place or world of the dead - said the researchers of the San Marcos University, who oversaw the excavations. - This discovery will enrich the investigation started last October because, unlike the Cajamarquilla mummy found wrapped in ropes, the conditions of these 13 people show a change in traditions, a different rite.
Researchers have dated the tomb between 800 and 1200 AD. Inside, in addition to human and animal remains, ceramic objects and organic elements - probably food or plants - were also found. That of the nobleman is not the only tomb full of treasures and mysteries in Cajamarquilla: another tomb has been excavated by archaeologists - inside a woman with a child (both wrapped in cloth bands) surrounded by ceramic objects and from a spindle for spinning.
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Source: National University of San Marcos
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