- Peru: A team of archaeologists finds the remains of the world's greatest child sacrifice
A group of archaeologists has discovered the remains of 227 children offered in a ritual of the pre-Columbian culture Chimú, on the north coast of Peru , which would be the largest finding of child sacrifices .
"So far we have found the remains of 227 children sacrificed from the Chimú culture," said archaeologist Feren Castillo , after noting that work had begun in 2018 .
The place of mass sacrifice was discovered in the Pampa La Cruz sector in Huanchaco, a coastal municipality of Trujillo , the third most populous city in Peru, 700 km north of Lima.
"It is the largest place where remains of sacrificed children have been found. There is no other in the world," said Castillo from the city of Trujillo, who explained that the remains are between 1,200 and 1,400 years old .
Castillo said that the children, between 4 and 14 years old , were sacrificed in a ritual in order to placate the natural disasters linked to the El Niño climate phenomenon. "We have found more evidence of rainfall in the findings," explained the researcher.
Remains everywhere
"Where we start digging another one comes out. It's uncontrollable; where you dig there is one more," he added. The bodies of the children are extended, towards the sea. Some still have silver skin, hair and earmuffs .
This finding of a mass child sacrifice is not the first in the Pampa La Cruz area . In June 2018 , remains of 56 children were discovered. And Pampa la Cruz is just two kilometers from Huanchaquito , where in April 2018 140 children and 200 llamas slaughtered in a similar ritual were discovered. That finding was documented by the National Geographic magazine.
National Geographic indicated that radiocarbon tests on ropes and textiles dated to the objects found in the tombs between the years 1400 and 1450, about a century before the Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro arrived in Peru (1532).
"Definitely, Huanchaco is the place chosen to make these sacrifices, " said the archaeologist at the National University of Trujillo. The place, known as Huanchaquito-Las Llamas, is located about 300 meters above sea level, in the middle of an expanding residential housing complex in Huanchaco.
The finding of the 140 children sacrificed in Huanchaquito forced us to review the history of human offerings in native rituals. In 2018, National Geographic highlighted that until that moment, the greatest finding of which there was evidence was the ritual sacrifice and burial of 42 children in the Templo Mayor in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán (currently, Mexico City ).
The Chimú civilization extended along the Peruvian coast to present-day Ecuador. By 1475, it disappeared when it was conquered by the Inca empire.
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