LIMA.- Archaeologists have discovered, 16 meters from the tomb of the Great Lord of Sipan, the remains of a teenager belonging to the Moche society who was buried over 1600 years ago in Peru.
The discoverer of the Lord of Sipan, Peru's Walter Alva, explained that eight days ago he proceeded to clean the grave in a hitherto unexplored area in northern Peru.
The tomb is located on the same funeral platform where the Lord of Sipan was found in 1987, one of the most important archaeological achievements of the twentieth century.
This site is located in the village of Sipan in the northern province of Lambayeque, the researchers located the entrance to a tomb consisting of a trench two feet wide and four meters long containing a cane coffin.
Inside the coffin, lay the remains of a teenager, apparently male, 1.35 meters high who would have between 12 and 14 years old, said Alva.
In the absence of definitive research, the remains found date from the fourth century AD or so, a date prior to the death of the Lord of Sipan, he added.
This tomb is the sixteenth found in the complex formed by two pyramids where people were the elite Moche were buried, a culture that lived between I and VIII centuries AD in this region of northern Peru.
Also, Alva explained that the with the coffin, four large jars with food waste were found, while inside there were other four vessels and some copper ornaments in the form of headgear.
Among the ceramics, the archaeologist said there was a realistic representation of a peanut which had been represented in the Lord of Sipan's metal collar.
"The Mochica (groundnuts) had a special meaning related to the cult of the dead and the cycles of regeneration because it is a flowering plant,which is then re-buried and germinates. It is the metaphor of the world of the living and the dead, " said Alva.
The side of the cane coffin shows the skeleton of a llama (camelid) and other indications suggest that only a fraction has been discovered.
According to Alva, the new finding in the pre-Inca platform is "extremely important" because it will help build the entire sequence of graves and meet their hierarchical level.