Peruvian customs agents find ancient skulls in mail
Posted: Saturday, June 12, 2004
LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Peruvian customs agents opening suspicious packages found five ancient skulls from a pre-Inca culture that someone tried to mail to California, authorities said Friday.
The mummified skulls, estimated to be as old as 2,700 years, turned up during inspections June 5 and 6. Customs agents put the five packages through an X-ray machine because they emitted a disagreeable odor.
Shipping claims outside the boxes said they contained gifts; inside, fake government certificates claimed the skulls were on authorized loan for anthropological study and cultural exhibition.
Authorities did not identify the sender or the intended recipient of the skulls.
It is illegal to take or ship historical artifacts out of Peru without government approval, but laws have done little to discourage the robbery of archaeological sites in this poor nation.
Archaeologist Guillermo Cock, who led a team that discovered more than 2,200 mummies in Lima between 1999 and 2001, told The Associated Press that grave robbery has increased in Peru amid a rising population and high unemployment.
Thieves usually search burial sites for gold, textiles and ceramics, he said. "This business of the mummified skulls seems macabre to me," Cock said. "We excavate and study human remains, but we don't collect them like trophies ... we are human beings after all."
Archeologists from the National Institute of Culture determined that the skulls date from around 700 B.C. to the Paracas -- one of more than a dozen cultures that preceded the Incas. The centurylong Inca reign ended with its defeat by Spanish conquistadors some 500 years ago.
The mummified skulls, estimated to be as old as 2,700 years, turned up during inspections June 5 and 6. Customs agents put the five packages through an X-ray machine because they emitted a disagreeable odor.
Shipping claims outside the boxes said they contained gifts; inside, fake government certificates claimed the skulls were on authorized loan for anthropological study and cultural exhibition.
Authorities did not identify the sender or the intended recipient of the skulls.
It is illegal to take or ship historical artifacts out of Peru without government approval, but laws have done little to discourage the robbery of archaeological sites in this poor nation.
Archaeologist Guillermo Cock, who led a team that discovered more than 2,200 mummies in Lima between 1999 and 2001, told The Associated Press that grave robbery has increased in Peru amid a rising population and high unemployment.
Thieves usually search burial sites for gold, textiles and ceramics, he said. "This business of the mummified skulls seems macabre to me," Cock said. "We excavate and study human remains, but we don't collect them like trophies ... we are human beings after all."
Archeologists from the National Institute of Culture determined that the skulls date from around 700 B.C. to the Paracas -- one of more than a dozen cultures that preceded the Incas. The centurylong Inca reign ended with its defeat by Spanish conquistadors some 500 years ago.
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