The Department of Anthropology hosts University of Illinois at Chicago anthropologist Brian Bauer, who will present, "Searching for the Royal Inca Mummies," Friday, March 12, from 12:30 – 1:45 p.m. in Anthropology room 248. For more than a century archaeologists and historians have focused on the fate of the mummies of the Inca kings following the Spanish conquest of Peru. Several lines of evidence indicate that five of the royal mummies were deposited in the Hospital of San Andrés in Lima in 1560.
In this presentation, Bauer summarizes what is currently known concerning the fate of the royal Inca mummies as well as the results of a recent ground-penetrating radar survey and an archaeological testing program which we conducted on the hospital grounds. The excavations revealed: the location of hospital's first cemetery, the remains of a 19th century fountain, an Early Colonial trash pit, and most intriguingly, a vaulted structure.
“While we did not find the royal mummies, the historical research and archaeological field work yielded new information on the history of the San Andrés compound and life in Lima during Early Colonial times,” Bauer said.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu