Police raiding a tomb robber's house in 1987 accidentally uncovered the richest unlooted tomb in the Americas.
Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A Fortunate Police Raid
In February 1987, police in northern Peru investigated a ring of huaqueros, or tomb robbers. The raid led them to the Huaca Rajada, a weathered pair of adobe pyramids near the town of Sipán. Alerted by the authorities, local archaeologist Walter Alva began a salvage excavation that would change the understanding of pre-Inca civilizations. The tomb they uncovered had been sealed for nearly 1,700 years and belonged to a ruler of the Moche civilization. The Moche flourished along Peru's desert coast from about 100 to 700 AD, engineering vast irrigation networks and producing some of the most complex metalwork of the ancient Americas.
The main tomb, dated to around 250-300 AD, held the remains of a high-ranking individual later named the Lord of Sipán. Scientific analysis showed he was about 1.63 meters tall and died between the ages of 35 and 45. This discovery was exceptionally rare because the burial was found completely intact, escaping the looting that has emptied many other Moche monumental sites, or huacas, over the centuries. The excavation eventually revealed a total of fourteen tombs, making Huaca Rajada a Moche necropolis.
The Lord of Sipán's Grave Goods
The Lord of Sipán was buried in a wooden plank coffin, a remarkable find of preserved organic material. Inside, he was covered in hundreds of ceremonial and ornamental objects. The collection of 451 items included large, complex earspools of gold and turquoise, a golden face mask, and multiple pectorals made of tiny shell beads. He wore a necklace with ten gold peanut-shaped beads on the right side and ten silver ones on the left, a design showing male and female duality. The materials came from across the region: gold, silver, copper, turquoise, and spondylus shells imported from the coast of modern-day Ecuador.
The Lord was not alone. He was accompanied by at least eight other individuals. The burials contained three young women, a child, a military commander, and two warriors. The warriors had their feet amputated, a measure to prevent them from abandoning their guard duty in the afterlife. The tomb also contained the remains of a dog and two llamas. Subsequent excavations at Huaca Rajada revealed the tombs of other high-ranking Moche figures, including an individual known as the "Old Lord of Sipán," who DNA analysis confirmed was a maternal relative of the Lord of Sipán.
💡Fun Facts
The Lord of Sipán's skull was crushed into 96 fragments by the weight of the soil and had to be meticulously reassembled by forensic experts.
Two trapezoidal sheets of beaten gold, called backflaps, were found in the tomb; warriors wore these attached to the back of their costumes.
The discovery led to the creation of the Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum, designed to resemble a Moche pyramid, which opened in 2002 and houses the original artifacts.
The Moche did not have a writing system, so archaeological finds like these burials are the primary source of information about their society and beliefs.
Tuesday to Sunday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Closed on Mondays.
Admission
General admission is S/.10 (Peruvian Sol).
Accessibility
The Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum is a modern, multi-level building. The Huaca Rajada archaeological site itself involves walking on unpaved, uneven dirt trails around the eroded pyramids.
