First Unlooted Royal Tomb of Its Kind Unearthed in Peru

link


I love stories like this.
It's great to see there's still stuff buried out there that we can find.



And I've never heard of the Wari. And it's cool to see that finds like this help us to learn more about them.

It was a stunning discovery: the first unlooted imperial tomb of the Wari, the ancient civilization that built South America's earliest empire between 700 and 1000 A.D. Yet it wasn't happiness that Milosz Giersz felt when he first glimpsed gold in the dim recesses of the burial chamber in northern Peru.

Giersz, an archaeologist at the University of Warsaw in Poland, realized at once that if word leaked out that his Polish-Peruvian team had discovered a 1,200-year-old "temple of the dead" filled with precious gold and silver artifacts, looters would descend on the site in droves. "I had a nightmare about the possibility," says Giersz.

So Giersz and project co-director Roberto Pimentel Nita kept their discovery secret. Digging quietly for months in one of the burial chambers, the archaeologists collected more than a thousand artifacts, including sophisticated gold and silver jewelry, bronze axes, and gold tools, along with the bodies of three Wari queens and 60 other individuals, some of whom were probably human sacrifices.

I always figured there would be more tombs to find around the world but one that hasn't been looted yet, I hope there are more pictures of the artifacts soon now that the story is out.

Nice to see a thread that deviates from war, spying, and doom(though this may be the result of some/all in the past)

What a great find and thanks for bringing it to light.

reply to post by grey580


Very nice,
For the people working the site it's the find of a lifetime.
S & F

What an amazing find! Awesome that it hadn't been robbed already!
But that made me wonder, why didn't they get a hold of National Geographic when they first found the gold items? Wouldn't they have helped secure the site?

But maybe, because of the gold, they wanted to make sure the items stayed in their country instead of being shipped everywhere?

Would love to see more pictures of the items found.

Its too bad that the best finds of antiquity are the result of greed. The Imperial Royal (meaning richest, most powerful) buried all their wealth with them rather than let anyone else have it. They even had their servants and pets killed and laid with them to rot in the ground.

King Tut Had 7 tons of gold in his vault.

"If I can't have it, nobody can".

Now this hoard will be hidden in some museum vault and await someone else to come along and plunder it for their own personal gain.

But we'll get a few tantalizing pictures of some of it.

I know, I know, its a treasure trove. And you can't have any of it.

I like the gold branding irons. It makes it easier to keep track of who's subjects the people were. It may have been also for the livestock Nah, a less impressive version would be used on the animals.

www.nbcnews.com...

here's another link with some more pics

reply to post by grey580


Brilliant. S&F

reply to post by grey580


Excellent find grey580
SnF for an exciting discovery can't wait to read more about it

Cody

Great little story

Would love more stories like this one!

Great find,i'm sure there are alot more tombs like this out there but we just have to find them.it does sadden me in a way when they say they had to keep it secret for months because of looters,history is something you can learn a great deal from but ultimatly greed will always take a over.

S+F

amazing find

EDIT:

Nice to have a thread that doesn't have violence & spying in it,it's been very samey lately around here so a thread like this is a breath of fresh air

reply to post by grey580


I was waiting for this and I suspect in the coming years more will be found. SnF Great find greay

13 amazing photos in this link:

elcomercio.pe...

Also, in another source :

Polish archaeologists discovered a royal tomb Huarmey Wari culture, only four hours from Lima.

In the burial chamber were found the remains of 63 people, including three queens, according to National Geographic.

In addition, experts found hundreds of gold and silver objects, as Milosz told Giersz, University of Warsaw

Giersz revealed to National Geographic who kept the discovery secret for fear that the "looters" come to plunder the findings. "It was my worst nightmare," he revealed.

www.rpp.com.pe...

nice pics, can't wait to see more! as others said, nice break from all the doom and gloom threads! I love this kind of stuff!

Makes you wonder just how much is lost under all that jungle and how much will come to light as they strip more and more of it away.

SnF on the thread. Great to find out about.

Originally posted by intrptr
Its too bad that the best finds of antiquity are the result of greed. The Imperial Royal (meaning richest, most powerful) buried all their wealth with them rather than let anyone else have it. They even had their servants and pets killed and laid with them to rot in the ground.

King Tut Had 7 tons of gold in his vault.

"If I can't have it, nobody can".

Now this hoard will be hidden in some museum vault and await someone else to come along and plunder it for their own personal gain.

But we'll get a few tantalizing pictures of some of it.

I know, I know, its a treasure trove. And you can't have any of it.

edit on 27-6-2013 by intrptr because: (no reason given)

It wasn't that they didn't want anyone else to have it, they seriously thought you took all the belongings with them when they died. Oh and thanks OP great find I love archaeology.

Excellent News.

And a good example of why its sometimes better to keep something a secret for some time.

Very cool find. There are probably still hundreds of sites around the world like this untouched. I always wondered what kind of $$ compensation they get for finding stuff like this?

What a wonderful find. Makes me wonder about the uncountable pieces of art, once buried with some potentate, that have been looted and "recycled" without even documenting the craftsmanship that had went into the creation.
A shame, but a fine example/metaphor for the way our species "feasts" on itself.

Luckily there will be other finds like this, although - probably - small in number. But, there is one big treat waiting, the tomb of the first chinese emperor. :-D

Plastic, cellphones or perhaps a camera, cardboard boxes...what sorcery did these primitive people posses?