Peru Ruins May Hide Mummies
An enormous ruin including a ceremonial platform, a football field-sized plaza, a watch tower and other architectural remains.
Keith Muscutt, an independent researcher, heard about the find and recently explored the eastern Andes site, which will make its television debut on the Discovery Channel?s new "Chasing Mummies" series early next year.
While the ruin ? nicknamed The Penitentiary ? may have been some kind of mausoleum, Muscutt thinks the large structures served another purpose. The plaza alone is 200 feet by 300 feet.
"My guess is that it was a ceremonial place where rituals were performed," said Muscutt, associate dean of arts at the University of California at Santa Cruz. "Parades, dances, theatrical events, large feasts or other gatherings may have taken place at the site."
He told Discovery News that a decorative area within the ruin, known as a frieze, is typical of the pre-Columbian Chachapoya civilization.
The Chachapoya, which means "cloud people," flourished in the upper Amazon from the ninth to the fifteenth century, before they were overwhelmed by the Inca Empire and then destroyed by epidemic diseases brought by the Spanish conquistadors.
"The discovery of this apparent pre-Columbian ruin is a piece of a puzzle that does not fit," Church told Discovery News. "The ruins are so big that they are screaming for attention."
While Church agreed that the frieze might be Chachapoya, he said the rest of the structures are the "classic Cuzco style" attributed to the Incans.
He suspects the Inca Empire mobilized labor, including Chachapoya individuals, to build the complex. Still, he conceded that the Chachapoya alone, or even another group, might have been solely responsible for the ruins.
An enormous ruin including a ceremonial platform, a football field-sized plaza, a watch tower and other architectural remains.
Keith Muscutt, an independent researcher, heard about the find and recently explored the eastern Andes site, which will make its television debut on the Discovery Channel?s new "Chasing Mummies" series early next year.
While the ruin ? nicknamed The Penitentiary ? may have been some kind of mausoleum, Muscutt thinks the large structures served another purpose. The plaza alone is 200 feet by 300 feet.
"My guess is that it was a ceremonial place where rituals were performed," said Muscutt, associate dean of arts at the University of California at Santa Cruz. "Parades, dances, theatrical events, large feasts or other gatherings may have taken place at the site."
He told Discovery News that a decorative area within the ruin, known as a frieze, is typical of the pre-Columbian Chachapoya civilization.
The Chachapoya, which means "cloud people," flourished in the upper Amazon from the ninth to the fifteenth century, before they were overwhelmed by the Inca Empire and then destroyed by epidemic diseases brought by the Spanish conquistadors.
"The discovery of this apparent pre-Columbian ruin is a piece of a puzzle that does not fit," Church told Discovery News. "The ruins are so big that they are screaming for attention."
While Church agreed that the frieze might be Chachapoya, he said the rest of the structures are the "classic Cuzco style" attributed to the Incans.
He suspects the Inca Empire mobilized labor, including Chachapoya individuals, to build the complex. Still, he conceded that the Chachapoya alone, or even another group, might have been solely responsible for the ruins.
