Months of searching through the Peruvian terrain has led a National Geographic Society-funded research team to unearth an ancient tomb holding the remains of three queens, their servants and a cache of golden treasure.
The team that found El Castillo de Huarmey (the Castle on the River Huarmey), the pyramid burial chamber located on the coast of southern Peru, is now calling the site the "Temple of the Dead." Led by Milosz Giersz of Poland's University of Warsaw, the Peruvian-Polish team told USA Today that this tomb represents the presence of an ancient Wari ruling class before 1000 A.D.
After the team swept away 30 tons of gravel from an entranceway, they found a tomb used only for female nobility-a chamber filled with gold earrings, silver and copper jewelry, axes made of bronze and small bowls of silver still intact.
Small burial chambers held the remnants of three female rulers-just a few feet further lay 53 woman buried in rows. Experts speculate that around six of them were most likely sacrificed to be buried with the queens. A child that some say was a boy was also put to rest in a corresponding chamber-this indicates that he held a heightened status.
The mausoleum site was, at one time, a palace where more than 40,000 people lived.
"I was really very, very surprised to find the site unlooted," Giersz said.
The mausoleum was located underneath a fallen tower. The team kept their excavation under wraps, working secretly over the span of a few months to prevent looters from gaining knowledge of the untold treasures that lurked beneath.
"Unusual and rare, we don't see female high-status rulers in the art of the Wari very often," Christina Conlee, archaeologist at Texas State University in San Marcos, said. "To find an unlooted tomb like this one is a big deal."
