The Lord of Sipán
The Lord of Sipán of the Mochica civilization was buried with several sets of massive and intricate gold ear gauges.
Rumors of Treasure in Chiclayo
In 1987, archeologists in Chiclayo heard that in the nearby village of Sipán, looters had found lots of gold. Of course, this wasn’t the sort of news that the looters wanted spread around, but the amount of treasure they were pulling out of the ground was the stuff of legend and rumors flew.
Stopping the looters required a lot of security, including armed police, stationed 24/7 at the site, before archeologists could take control of a place that everybody now knew was full of riches. Eventually, Peruvian archeologist Dr. Walter Alva and his team were able to start careful excavations to see if the looters had missed anything – thankfully, they missed A LOT. These Mochica tombs from the 2nd and 3rd century are the most complete tombs archeologists have found in South America.
How to Visit the Lord of Sipán?
If you have a full day, start in the morning at Huaca Rajada, go back to Chiclayo for lunch, and then to Lambayeque for the Royal Tombs of Sipan Museum. If you have only a half day, go to the museum in Lambayeque in the morning. I did the full day tour with Sipán Tours and highly recommend it.
The Huaca Rajada Archeological Site
At Huaca Rajada, you can see where the tombs were excavated and replicas of the skeletons and objects in the actual tombs. While the skeletons are realistic, you can see in the photos above, no attempt was made for the objects to look realistic. The area has very little security and anything too interesting could be stolen during the night.
Museum burial replicas
The replicas inside the Huaca Rajada museum are much more detailed than the excavated areas outside.
There is a small museum on site that has some original ceramics, but all truly valuable items have been moved to the secure museum in Lambayeque. My favorite part was the owls: the real ones that were perched on the edges of every tomb and the ceramic ones in the museum. The Mochica believed that owls guided people from this world to the next.
The Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum, Lambayeque
What I loved most about this museum was the way each object was presented, often with photos of how it was found, in the pile of everything in the tomb. You get to see the mess that archeologists found when they got the dirt off, then each object, cleaned and as restored as possible. After seeing all the original pieces, at the end you come to a statue of the person, wearing replicas of everything, so you can see how they would have looked in real life.
Excavating the Lord of Sipán
I think the photos of the excavations are so impressive because they show what delicate chaos archeologists were faced with. That you can see each restored object displayed in the museum seems almost miraculous to me.
The headdress in these photos is below.
This was part of a gold headdress. Check out the detailed carvings above the standing figure, his owl necklace and fingernails.
The 3rd Century Lord of Sipán
Though we’ll never know exactly what the looters got away with, what they were only a few feet from discovering was soon named the Lord of Sipán. This 3rd century ruler died at around 40 years old and was buried with eight people and over 600 exquisite objects, most of gold, silver and bronze. With him were three women, assumed to be a wife and two concubines. There was also a child and three men: a military commander and two servants. The Lord of Sipán had animals to lead him to the afterlife: a dog to guide him and two llamas to carry all the objects in the tomb. Several feet above the tomb, placed as if an extra guardian, was another man.
The Lord of Sipán himself was covered with layers of gold, silver, bronze and tiny beads made of shell from Ecuador, lapis lazuli from Chile, turquoise from Colombia and gold from Peru. His bones were crushed by the treasures covering him, as well as the settling of several meters of sediment over about 1750 years. There were more objects on top of him than in most other tombs combined.
Mystery Solved – after 10 years
Since my visit to the Museo de Oro in Bogotá in 2015, I have been mystified by the massive pieces of jewelry called nariguera in Spanish and often translated as “nose ornament” or “nose ring” in English. You can see in the two photos above, these are not nose rings. They do not pierce the septum but pinch together to stay in place. They are almost always made of gold, perhaps because it’s easier to pinch around a septum, but that means they’re also very heavy. They look so uncomfortable and excessive that I wince when I see one.
So … why? After years of asking people why, my Sipán guide Jassibel finally had the answer: these weren’t nose decorations, they were mouth coverings. The Lord of Sipán and the shamans occupy a role, and that role is bigger than the individual human. What they say during rituals, when they would be wearing a nariguera, could have been the words of the gods for the common people of the day. Not seeing a person’s mouth moving helps others concentrate on the message, not the messenger. Go back up to the first photo on this blog, the massive ear gauge – see how the golden figure’s mouth is covered?
Where are the other treasures?
This was the first intact royal burial site found in South America, where looting has been rampant the past 500 years. Dozens, if not hundreds, of royal burial sites in Peru have been partially or entirely looted, with incalculable loss to the information archeologists and historians are able to glean from the past. Private collections, and even museums, around the world have objects looted from Peru. Even worse, many objects were melted down and the gold or silver was sold by weight. At least intact objects could, if found, be repatriated to Peruvian museums.
The Old Lord of Sipán
Two years after excavating the Lord of Sipán, Dr Alva’s team made another, some say even bigger, discovery. On a lower level, but still in the same area, they found another tomb that, decades later, DNA showed was mostly likely the grandfather of the Lord of Sipán. He was covered with almost as much stuff as his grandson, but his bones were in much better shape. Later analysis showed that while the Old Lord of Sipán led a life of activity, supposedly fighting to earn his role as leader, his grandson’s sedentary lifestyle led to osteoporosis and other diseases.
It’s incredible to walk through the exhibit, examining the details of each object, then suddenly be confronted by a life size statue of the man wearing replicas of all the artifacts you just saw.
Exhibits at the Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum
The most famous tombs are the Lord of Sipán and the Old Lord of Sipán, but there are several other fascinating tombs presented. One is a warrior-shaman, who was buried with objects that showed both his military rank and his spiritual leadership. The museum is presented in layers, as you go down each floor, you see exhibits of what archeologists found as they dug down below the Lord of Sipán.
The Priestess of Chornancap is one of the most recent major archeological finds in Peru.
The Priestess of Chornancap
In a separate exhibit, on the top floor, is the tomb of the Sacerdotisa de Chornancap, found in 2010, in the photo below on the right. She died around the age of 50 and was buried surrounded by eight young women and a llama. The women were buried sitting up, except for one whose head was the only part of her in the tomb.
The Moche are most famous for their ceramics.
While the gold and silver artifacts get the most attention, the Mochica were skilled ceramicists, known for their expressive faces. According to archeologists, it was common for important people to have sculptures made of their heads, like 3rd century portraits. The dog and childbirth scene above really stood out to me as unique among all the ceramics. If you want to see thousands of examples of Moche ceramics, go to the Larco Museum in Lima.
How to get there?
Huaca Rajada is over an hour from the center of Chiclayo, in the opposite direction from the Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum in Lambayeque. It’s quite inconvenient for anybody who wants to visit both, which is why most international travelers only go to the museum in Lambayeque.
Why? Because of the looting in Huaca Rajada and the value of all the objects Dr Alva and his team were finding, they had to find a very secure location to build the kind of museum that would have many levels of security. The town of Lambayeque donated the land and offered to facilitate building the museum.
The Mochica Civilization
Sipán may have the most elaborate, and intact, archeological sites, but it is only one of many places where you can learn about the Mochica Civilization, which thrived on Peru’s northern coast from the 2nd to the 8th centuries.
Museum hours & prices
Huaca Rajada is open daily 9am-5pm and costs s/8 soles for both the archeological site and museum.
The Royal Tombs Museum is open daily 10am-5pm but the last entry is 4pm and costs s/10 soles.
The Bruning Museum is open daily 9am-5pm and costs s/8 soles.
Want to plan your trip?
Contact me to schedule a travel call and I’ll be happy to help you plan your trip to Peru!
