Were There Ancient Hebrew Burials in Peru – Part II

Continued from the previous post regarding the burial methods of ancient Andean Peru using chullpas or Burial Towers that are still found scattered around the Altiplano of Peru and Bolivia as well as elsewhere, including central and northern Peru, Ecuador, and northern Chile.

Chullpas in Andean Peru were built in many styles over time, from merely stacked field stones to finished and cut stone towers of expert workmanship. Most today are in ruins from looters and those who took stones to build private house

As was shown in the last post, these chullpa funerary towers were built with great care and reverence in which the dead were placed in a systematic manner, as did the ancient Hebrews in the Old World in their rock carved stone sepulchers. However, while what is mostly seen today of the chullpas in their damaged and somewhat ruined form, the original chullpas had elaborate domes covering the towers.

Domed funerary tower sepulchers in Andean Peru showed the reverence with which the ancient Peruvians interred their dead

 

Like the ancient Hebrews with their rock-carved sepulchers, caves and catacombs, the ancient Peruvians held great reverence for the “burial” of their dead. They built thousands of these family funerary towers throughout Andean Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and northern Chile, and interred the dead in much the same manner as the Hebrews in Palestine.
    Unfortunately, the local governments along the Andes paid little attention to these burial towers until recently, having allowed looters to break into chullpas and even dynamite them to get at what was believed to be great riches and gold within; however, except for some personal belongings of the departed, the chullpas were empty except for the mummies of the ancient peoples. Many locals even tore down the chullpas to obtain both field and dressed stone and carted them off in order to build their private houses and structures.
    It is of interest that the largest of the chullpas was square in shape and composed of several multi-ton blocks, now often scattered about as though some major destruction, such as a catastrophic earthquake had struck them.
    It should also be observed, that like the ancient Hebrews, who interred their dead in caves cut into the rock cliffs, as well as stone built sepulchers and even catacombs in some lands, the ancient Peruvians used similar methods for burial other than just the chullpas. Many areas have different “burial” methods and locations, such as those interred in caves cut into cliffs and hard-to-access mountain locations.
    These cliff area caves, like the larger chullpas, had “burials” within dedicated rooms for family and the community, often in groups, and these chambers were reopened every so often so that new mummies could be added. High status individuals were clothed and wrapped in particularly fine textiles and jewelry. The deceased's possessions were often interred along with their owner, sometimes also with the tools of their particular profession.

Top: Cliff side tombs built on lofty ledges, scarring the cliffs of the remote Colca Canyon, south central Peru; Bottom: Stone tombs or sepulchers built along cliff faces in Cajatambo in the highlands of central Peru

One of the most remarkable sites for mummified remains is the area around Cajatambo (Qaqatampu) in the highlands of central Peru among the Huayhuash mountain range, about 70 miles north of Lima. No fewer than 1,825 ancient mummies were recorded by the Spanish in the 17th century, not long after their conquest. Here mummies were stored in sacred caves known as machay and, dressed in finery, they were periodically visited and looked after.
    Another remarkable area of burial tombs are those built into the cliffs of the remote Colca Canyon. The graves were hewn into the granite cliffs of the rugged Cerero Cerani near Cabanaconde in southern Peru and closed off with rock walls. There are no footholds that would allow workers to climb up so they must have been suspended on ropes from above. These rock tombs, referred to as Tumbas de Choquetico, pre-date the Inca; however, most have been plundered as seen by the openings in the rock.
    In addition, there were sepulchers of stone built in various areas, and according to Matthew Velasco of Cornell University (February Current Anthropology), some can be found at the base of a cliff in the Colca Valley in southeastern Peru. Others cut into the rock of mountain cliffs to form towering edifices of burial cubicles or rooms.

Burial compartments or niches on a cliff at Carajia, nestled in the cloud forests of northern Peru not far from Cajamarca and northeast of the city of Chachapoyas

These burial niches were cut into the rock of a mountain cliff at Chachapoya in northern Peru by the Chachapoya “Fog or Cloud Warriors” culture of the last century B.C. These ancient Peruvians interred their dead in these cliff faced catacombs carved out of the rock in the same way ancient Hebrews/Jews interred their dead in foreign lands in catacombs or recesses beneath large cities cut into the rock walls of underground tunnels and rooms.
    These ancient northern Peruvians also interred their dead in life-sized sarcophagus with human faces containing mummies within and placed on the mountain ledges of hard-to-access cliffs. They also interred their dead in mausoleum buildings like those a little to the south at Revash near San Bartolo where burial chambers or tombs were cut in cliff-side walls of a canyon above the Utcubamba River and in little rock buildings of small stones like miniature “villages” placed on ledges and cliff overhangs; or Laguna de los Cóndores, where tombs are located on a cliff 328 feet above the Lagoon.
    In addition, there were “burials” where the dead were interred in sarcophagi made like human forms and placed within clefts and ledges on cliffs, all facing the east, and placed in inaccessible locations where they were difficult for looters of the day to reach.

Human-shaped, life-sized sarcophagi at Karajía, east of Chiclayo, near Cohechán in north central Peru, the largest site of sarcophagus known today and has remained intact over the centuries, with a single mummy within each sarcophagus

There were also more elite burial chambers, called “temples of the dead,” such as the one found in 2012 north of Lima, Peru, with 58 female skeletons in a series of rooms or chambers built for the burials. In addition, there were also walled tombs just east of Chiclayo uncovered beneath an eroded pyramid structure in Sipán complete with sarcophagus and a wealth of treasure and additional skeletons surrounding the main mummy.

Left: A burial temple of several rooms where 58 mummies were found; Right: an elite burial chamber beneath a pyramid in Sipán

It might also be noted that very similar stone constructions on Easter Island known as tupas have been found and archaeologists suspect they are closely related to the Peruvian chullpas, though far less in quality of construction. Still, they represent a type of burial that is consistent with the ancient Hebrews/Jews and that of Andean Peru.

Easter Island tupa, some are built very similar to the chullpas of Peru, and served as ancient “burial” chambers for the early Rapa Nui people of the island 

Thus, we find that the burial methods of the ancient Hebrews/Jews, unique in their day where the vast majority of pagan cultures buried their dead in the ground or cremated them, was duplicated in Andean Peru with above-ground structures (sepulchers called chullpas) or in caves and compartments carved into rock cliffs as found in the Jewish catacombs, and in mausoleums and other similar rock structures with great reverence paid to the entombing of the dead.