He was dressed in ancient Peruvian textiles, but his scrawny hand clutched a wooden cross on his chest. This is the mysterious corpse recently found in one of the more than fifty pre-Hispanic tombs that the largest zoo in Peru treasures and that, according to archaeologists, could have been a colonial cemetery.
Along with this individual, who still has four teeth and gray hair, the remains of two other burials were discovered, one of them a child, which remained hidden for centuries at the top of the Tres Palos area, which a millennium ago, In pre-Inca times, it served as a temple.
Today, it extends over nearly four hectares in the archaeological complex of Maranga and stands impotent on the horizon, surrounded by the caged tarugas and anteaters in the Parque de las Leyendas zoo, in the San Miguel district of the Peruvian capital. .
The archaeologists, led by Lucénida Carrión, deputy manager of Archeology of the Municipality of Lima, resumed work in Tres Palos last July with the aim of deciphering which was the main entrance to what was a plaza during the Inca empire.
But they were surprised to find, in front of a colonial house, these three burials, surrounded by textile elements, bracelets and funerary mantles, which, for now, have raised more questions than answers.
Nothing is known of the gender, age or period in which these individuals lived. The only certainty, due to the presence of the well-crafted wooden cross, is that it was from 1532, when the colonizers arrived in the Andean country and the transitional period and the fall of the Inca empire began.
"We don't know exactly if it is the transitional period, just when the Spaniards arrive (...) but apparently it could also be colonial. From their arrival until 1600 and 1700," estimates Carrión.
The scientist details that the bodies of the two adults, lying supine, were facing north, with their faces "looking" at the sea, where it is intuited that these characters carried out their main activities, related to fishing.
The skeleton buried with the cross holds the object with his left hand, at chest height, and on his wrist he wears a thread bracelet, deteriorated like the cotton fabrics that covered it. "The other individual has a red, ochre, yellow and black ribbon (...) the shape of the clothing draws our attention. The fabric they are wearing is typical of the people here, it is cotton and the colors also (they are the ones) who drove", details the archaeologist.
Due to this fusion of local and colonial elements, it is presumed that it could be native settlers converted to Christianity or a marriage between conquerors and locals, issues that Carrión trusts that laboratory analyzes will resolve.
Another great unknown pending clarification is whether the space where the burials were found was the cemetery in colonial times or if it was rather an isolated family burial. "We propose that it could be a cemetery because we have found (the bodies) almost continuous, but that is why we are expanding the excavation," says the specialist.
If this hypothesis is confirmed, this would be the first colonial burial found in the 54 huacas housed in the Parque de las Leyendas zoo, where graves from the Lima (200-650), Ychsma (900-1450) and Inca (1450-1532), all prior to the arrival of the Spanish.
