Unexpected discovery for the Peruvian police, who found a mummy dating back 600-800 years, folded in a thermal bag of a young man being searched for visible drunkenness in an archaeological park in the Andean city of Puno. The pre-Hispanic mummy was brought by a 26-year-old former home delivery driver named Julio Cesar Bermejo, who told the media that the mummy, affectionately dubbed Juanita, had been kept in the family home for almost 30 years. “At home he is in my room, he sleeps with me. I take care of her, I keep her, she’s like my spiritual fiancee,” said the young man, specifying that her father had taken her away from a police officer who owed him money. However, according to the Ministry of Culture, “it’s not about Juanita, it’s about Juan”. This ‘pre-Hispanic artifact’, dated ‘600 to 800 years’, has in fact been identified as that of a ‘mummified adult male individual, probably from the eastern part of Puno’. According to a quick analysis of the brain case, it would be the body of a man at least 45 years old and 151 cm tall. The mummy was wrapped in bandages in a fetal position, typical of many of the pre-Hispanic burials in the area. Julio Cesar Bermejo denied selling the mummy, claiming he carried it in his thermal backpack to show his “friends” what he believes to be some sort of spiritual friend, before donating it to a local museum. The culture ministry ordered the “immediate confiscation” of the mummified remains “to protect and preserve the heritage.” The young man who wore it and his two friends, aged between 23 and 26, were arrested and investigated for possible crimes against Peru’s cultural heritage. Mummification was practiced by a variety of cultures in present-day Peru before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. Some mummies were buried while others were taken out and paraded at important festivals.
