HEADLESS BODY PREDATING INCAS FOUND
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[ October 23rd 2005 ]

Archaeologists excavating a site in Peru have uncovered the remains of a headless mummy predating the Incas in Lima, Associated Press reports this morning. The body - said to belong to a high-ranking official of the Huari tribe - is thought to be more than 1,300 years old.

"He was decapitated and belongs to the Huari culture that invaded Lima," said archaeologist Isabel Flores, director of the Huaca Pucllana museum, adding the Huaris predated the Incas, who dominated South America from Colombia to Chile until being toppled by Spanish conquerors in the 1530s.

"Judging by the clothes he is wearing, we're talking about a senior official who was buried wrapped in cloth and tied with rope made of vegetal fibre," Flores added.

According to Reuters, the Ichmas were likely responsible for decapitating the Huari official well after he was buried in an attempt to erase all vestiges of a tribe that dominated them for years.

The Huari (or Wari) was a Middle Horizon civilization that flourished in the Andes in the south of modern day Peru, from about 500 to 1200 A.D. The Huari state established architecturally distinctive administrative centers in many of its provinces.

Some 300 years after the Huari empire collapsed, Tahuantinsuyu - an Inca empire located in South America from 1438 AD to 1533 AD - became the dominant power in the Andean region.