тАЬBuyers would come from Chiclayo and weтАЩd sell the pieces for a pittance because we didnтАЩt know what they were worth,тАЭ Mr. Villareal said. He recalled finding and trading masks, shell necklaces, gold pectorals and ceramic sculptures with erotic themes.
At the new site, he helped to carefully pack a skull to transport to a C├бlidda lab for further investigation. тАЬWe would have discarded all of this,тАЭ Mr. Villareal said.
The newly uncovered graves were most likely part of a cemetery used for hundreds of years by different groups that farmed along the Chill├│n River, said Roberto Quispe, an archaeologist with C├бlidda. Archaeologists first became aware of it after seeing aerial photos, taken in the 1940s, that showed the telltale signs of tomb raiding.
тАЬYou see some plots of farmland and next to them an empty lot thatтАЩs completely full of holes,тАЭ Mr. Quispe said. тАЬThe cemetery had been completely looted and people started to settle on top of it.тАЭ
As Mr. Quispe worked inside a tomb, a restaurant nearby blasted cumbia music and passers-by stopped to watch and take pictures.
тАЬI came to show my kids and nephews,тАЭ said Rolando Torres, a local resident, as children in school uniforms peered into one of the graves. A neighbor had sent Mr. Torres a video of the discovery, so he came right away to see the site. тАЬWe who live here, this is part of our ancestry,тАЭ he said.
The objects found in the graves correspond to the Chancay culture, which occupied an area north of Lima from 1,200 to 1,450 A.D., and to an earlier cultural development known as Huaura. The unearthed items include a ceramic flute, a figurine perhaps representing a goddess and an early version of a cuchimilco, a ceramic figurine with an expression of awe or surprise that was placed in Chancay tombs to accompany the dead.
