Thursday, April 19, 2007

Peru Ruins May Hide Mummies

(Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News)

Jan. 19, 2007 — While on a hunting trip last year in a remote, forested part of Peru, family members Octavio, Merlin and Edison AƱazco literally bumped into something extraordinary: an enormous ruin including a ceremonial platform, a football field-sized plaza, a watch tower and other architectural remains.

Keith Muscutt, an independent researcher, heard about the find and recently explored the eastern Andes site, which will make its television debut on the Discovery Channel’s new "Chasing Mummies" series early next year.

The related footage, produced in collaboration with GRB-Entertainment, may show mummies, as Muscutt believes the structures were built by the ancient Chachapoya civilization, known for its mountainside tombs and the mummies within them.

While the ruin — nicknamed The Penitentiary — may have been some kind of mausoleum, Muscutt thinks the large structures served another purpose. The plaza alone is 200 feet by 300 feet.

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