Museo Arqueológico San Miguel de Azapa

Museo Arqueologico San Miguel de Azapa near Arica, Chile.  This small building holds the remains of five of the oldest mummies in the world which have been recovered.  The mummies which are found here date some two thousand years before the Egyptians ever showed evidence of practicing mumification.

The oldest known mummies in the world.

Hunting and fishing tools used by the early people of the northern Chile region.  The museum lists its artifacts in chronological order ranging about three thousand years.  As time goes on better uses of pottery and fishing techniques begin to emerge.

The people of the area were also known to produce oil from flowers and plants and some of these lamps were found to have been used here much earlier than thought of in other parts of early America.

The father of the universe, Pachatata.  His face is found in many places around Chile and Peru.

Old yet preserved puma skin masks worn by hunters.

An interesting fact about the mummies of this time were that people actually preserved the bodies of everybody and not only special members of society much like in the Egyptian cutlure.  This was discovered based on the findings of mummified bodies of children and physically disabled members of the clan which would probably only slow down a hunter gatherer society.

Not far from Azapa in the region of Arequipa, Peru there has bene discovered the body of a young girl who was killed by human sacrifice.  This shows that the pre Inca people not only practiced human sacrifice yet the sacrifice of small children.

Wedding atire.

Outfit worn by the high chief in later colonial times.