![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/mummyperu.jpg\")
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An exquisitely preserved and elaborately tattooed
\n mummy of a young woman has been discovered deep inside a mud-brick pyramid
\n in northern Peru, archaeologists from Peru and the U.S. announced today.<\/p>\n
The 1,500-year-old mummy may shed new light on the mysterious Moche<\/a> culture, In addition to the heavily tattooed body, the tomb yielded a rich array The tomb lay near the top of a crumbling pyramid called Huaca Cao Viejo, from National Geographic<\/a><\/p>\n El Brujo, of course, means The Wizard, The Witchdoctor, The Moche<\/a>, who ruled what today is the north coast of They worshiped a sanguinary deity called The Decapitator, They couldn’t build a house or even an outhouse Moche is a dark and haunted town to this day. It features worn, We know whereof we speak, as we lived over 10 years The Moche marriage turned out to be almost as bloody An exquisitely preserved and elaborately tattooed mummy of a young woman has been discovered deep inside a mud-brick pyramid in northern Peru, archaeologists from Peru and the U.S. announced today. The 1,500-year-old mummy may shed new light on the mysterious … Continue reading
\n which occupied Peru’s northern coastal valleys from about A.D. 100 to 800.<\/p>\n
\n of funeral objects, from gold sewing needles and weaving tools to masterfully
\n worked metal jewelry. Peruvian archaeologists, under the direction of lead
\n scientist R?gulo Franco, made the discovery last year at an ancient ceremonial
\n site known as El Brujo.<\/p>\n
\n a ruin near the town of Trujillo (see Peru map) that has been well known
\n since colonial times.<\/p>\n
\n The Shaman. We suspect the
\n tattooed chick has a back story that would make today’s most demented
\n Goth seem like a Princess in a Fairy Tale by comparison. See related
\n speculation in the New
\n York Times<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
\n Peru when the Roman Empire ruled the Ancient World, were without a doubt
\n the most blood-thirsty and ghoulish of the many sacrificial cults in
\n pre-Hispanic America. They sacrificed thousands of assorted victims every
\n year for hundreds of years. They especially liked to sacrifice children
\n and virgins.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n usually depicted as a giant spider with one arm holding a knife at the
\n neck of its next victim and another holding the head by its hair. The
\n sacrifices, often dozens or hundreds at a time, featured not only, like
\n the Aztecs, removal of the still-beating heart using a special sacrificial
\n knife,
\n but also complete excarnation<\/a> and
\n ritual consumption of human blood.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n without sacrificing several teenaged virgins and planting them at the
\n corners in
\n a sort of macabre feng shui. Much anthropological attention has been paid
\n to the source of so many human sacrifices, with no consensus conclusion.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n slump-shouldered pyramids of weathered adobe brick, rising like brown
\n bales of sun-baked straw in the middle of irrigated fields of corn and
\n sugar cane, desultory agricultural workers and poverty-stricken peasants shuffling listlessly through said fields, and an occasional backpacking tourist. The tourists usually look around the corn fields and failing to locate a museum, gift shop, bathrooms or even a soda stand, usually leave without even seeing the pyramids up close.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n in the nearby Peruvian city
\n of Trujillo. In fact, perhaps not coincidentally, the Dowbrigade
\n was married (wife #1) in Moche, to a Peruvian Princess, daughter of a
\n local judge with shady connections in Moche which allowed us to avoid
\n certain time-consuming
\n legal prerequisites to matrimony required in more organized and supervised
\n jurisdictions.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n as the empire that preceded it, and these days our now ex-wife is looking
\n more
\n and more
\n like the tattooed sweetheart above. But let’s not get nasty, or mean-spirited,
\n this late in the game. We’re bigger than that.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"