Colorful ancient mural -- believed to be destroyed by looters -- rediscovered in Peru
BY ASPEN PFLUGHOEFT
NOVEMBER 29, 2022 2:35 PM
Archaeologists in Illimo uncovered the Huaca Pintada, a colorful ancient mural that many believed was destroyed by looters a century ago. Photo from Sâm Ghavami
Black and white photographs, field notes and local legends were once all that was left — and all there would ever be — of an ancient mural found and lost a century ago in Peru. Now, archaeologists rediscovered the long-lost mural.
Tomb-raiding looters found the 100-foot-long ancient mural, the Huaca Pintada, in 1916 while digging for buried treasures near Illimo, La República, a Peruvian newspaper, reported. Local authorities, however, prevented the looters from raiding the site. In response, the looters destroyed the mural — or so everyone thought.
All that remained of the Huaca Pintada were black and white photographs taken in 1916 by Hans Heinrich Brüning, a German ethnographer living in Peru at the time, The Guardian reported.
The photographs, field notes and local legends about the mural persisted for years, Richard Schaedel, professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote in a 1978 paper on the mural. Excavations in the mid-1900s found no traces of the mural.
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The mound with the Huaca Pintada mural on its walls as seen from above. Photo from Sâm Ghavami
Read more at: https://www.heraldonline.com/news/nation-world/world/article269356467.html#storylink=cpy
