El Castillo de Huarmey, the stepped pyramid
mausoleum on the coast of southern Peru,
has been dubbed the “Temple of the Dead.”
Peru announced Thursday the discovery of
an ancient tomb filled with golden treasure,
three queens and the servants who
accompanied them into the afterlife some
1,200 years ago.
The Wari (Huari) were ancient rulers of
southern Peru before 1000 A.D. and the
advent of the Inca Empire. The
archaeologists collected more than a thousand
artifacts, including sophisticated gold and silver
jewelry, bronze axes, and gold weaving tools,
along with the bodies of three Wari queens
and 60 other individuals. For archaeologists,
the greatest treasure will be the tomb’s wealth
of new information on the Wari (Huari) Empire.
The construction of an imperial mausoleum at
El Castillo shows that Wari lords conquered and
politically controlled this part of the northern
coast, and likely played a key role in the
downfall of the northern Moche kingdom.
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