During excavations at a pre-Hispanic sanctuary on the northern coast of Peru, archaeologists found the graves of 76 children.
According to archaeologist Luis Flores, one of the researchers of the sanctuary in Pampa La Cruz, they were sacrificed in religious rituals about 1,000 years ago.
The remains of the children, who were sacrificed between the ages of six and fifteen, were discovered between July and August on two small esplanades of this sanctuary in the municipality of Huanchaco, near the city of Trujillo, 500 kilometers north of Lima.
The same team of researchers, led by archaeologist Gabriel Prieto, found between 2016 and 2019 the remains of another two hundred and forty children sacrificed by the Chimú people, who developed between 900 and 1450.
“We were surprised that the excavation revealed the remains of children,” said Flores. He explained that the children’s chests were cut open crosswise to extract their hearts in rituals for the gods of the Chimú people.
“The victims could be due to lack of rain, drought, political [problems] or wars. There are several hypotheses that we are investigating,” the archaeologist pointed out.
Among the remains are five “sitting” girls buried in a circle with their heads together.
“Thanks to Pampa La Cruz, we know that human sacrifice, especially of children, was a structural part of the Chimu religion to celebrate and glorify their state,” Prieto told Peru’s state agency “Andina.”
Pampa La Cruz is located two kilometers from the Huanchaquito archaeological site, where the remains of one hundred and forty children and two hundred llamas sacrificed during rituals were found in April 2018.
National Geographic magazine noted that radiocarbon tests on ropes and textiles dated the found objects to between 1,400 and 1,450, about a century before the arrival of Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro in Peru (1532).
The sacrificial site is located two kilometers from the coast and about three hundred meters above sea level in the middle of a residential complex in Huanchaco. This finding led to revising theories about human sacrifice in pre-Hispanic rituals.
The Chimu civilization spread along the Peruvian coast to what is now Ecuador. It disappeared around 1475 with the conquest by the Inca Empire, whose capital was Cuzco (in southeastern Peru).
The Inca Empire, in turn, was subdued a few decades later by Pizarro and his men.
With information from Latina Press
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