Gilded mask found beside the tomb of the elite male.
Archaeologists were surprised recently to unearth the remains of a male buried among a bevy of powerful priestesses in a Peruvian pre-Inca Moche tomb. The Moche people were a fragmented society of farmers who occupied the arid coasts of Peru from about 100 to 1000 AD.
According to National Geographic:
Surrounded by early "smoke machines" as well as human and llama bones, the body was among several buried inside a unique double-chambered tomb that dates back to A.D. 850, said archaeologist Luis Jaime Castillo Butters, of the Catholic University of Peru in Lima.The tomb contained a wooden coffin decorated with a copper lattice and a gilded mask, sitting on a raised platform. Inside the coffin "is where we find the main object of the burial, and that fellow is a male," Castillo said.
"After 18 years of excavation in San José de Moro, we were expecting another female," he added. "But this tends to happen [in archaeology]—expect the unexpected."
The site has so far yielded seven royal priestess burials, an indication of the powerful role of women in Moche society, Castillo said.
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The Drone.
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