[Aztlan] Royal tomb uncovered at Tiwanaku

[michael ruggeri]

Tiwanaku, May 3: Archaeologists have uncovered the 1,300-year-old  
skeleton of a ruler or priest of the ancient Tiwanaku civilisation  
together with precious jewels inside a much-looted pyramid in western  
Bolivia.

The bones are "in very good condition" and belong to either "a ruler  
or a priest," Roger Angel Cossio, the Bolivian archaeologist who made  
the discovery, told Reuters on Wednesday.

He said the tomb -- containing a diadem and fist-sized carved pendant  
of solid gold -- survived centuries of looting by Spanish invaders  
and unscrupulous raiders who depleted Tiwanaku of many precious  
treasures.

"After so much looting... miraculously this has stayed to tell us the  
history," Cossio said.

"It's a complete body... next to it are jewels, offerings and a  
llama," he said.

The llama may have been a status symbol or a source of food for the  
journey to the afterlife, archaeologists said.

The corpse was found in a niche carved inside the 15-metre-high  
Akapana pyramid, which was built around 1200 BC and is described by  
experts as one of the biggest pre-Columbian constructions in South  
America.

At its peak, the city of Tiwanaku stretched over 1,480 acres (600  
hectares) and had a population of over 100,000, according to chief  
archaeologist Javier Escalante, who presented the findings on  
Wednesday at a news conference near the pyramid.

Although experts still have to do carbon dating to determine the age  
of the remains, archaeologists estimate they were buried some 1,300  
years ago, during the decline of the Tiwanaku empire.

Cossio believes the remains belong to someone of importance in the  
Tiwanaku society.

"Not just anyone would be buried under the Akapana pyramid" he said.

In the 1900s workers used the base of the pyramid as a quarry from  
which they extracted stones to build a rail line connecting the  
neighbouring town of Guaqui with La Paz.


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