Lima (AFP)
A team of archaeologists has uncovered the remains of 227 children sacrificed according to a ritual of Pre-Columbian culture Chimu, present on the northern coast of present-day Peru until the end of the 15th century, AFP reported on Tuesday. Archaeologist Feren Castillo, a discovery of a magnitude unparalleled in the world.
"This is the largest child sacrifice site," said the archaeologist from the city of Trujillo (north west), adding that the excavations started in 2018 were located on the site of Pampa la Cruz, in the seaside resort of Huanchaco, some 700 kilometers north of Lima.
The children, aged between 4 and 14, were killed according to a ritual offered to the gods of the Chimu civilization supposed to appease their anger, supposedly responsible for the natural disasters related to the El Niño climate phenomenon.
Archaeologists have also found evidence of an episode of heavy rains at the time of sacrifice.
"Wherever we dig we find another (child)," buried with his face turned to the ocean, continued the head of the excavations. Some still have skin, hair, and wear silver jewelry.
Huanchaco was the scene of several massive sacrifices of children under the Chimu empire. A mass grave of 56 children had been exhumed in June 2018 on the same site of Pampa la Cruz and another of 140 children and 200 young lamas had been discovered in April of the same year nearby, on the site of Huanchaquito.
National Geographic magazine emphasized the exceptional nature of the discovery.
"Huanchaco is definitely the place chosen (by chimus) to perpetrate these sacrifices," concluded Mr. Castillo.
The Chimu empire reached its peak between 900 and 1450 on the northern coast of Peru, until the current Ecuador. It ended in 1475, overthrown by the Inca empire, fifty years before the arrival of the first conquistadors in the region.
© 2019 AFP