Ancient "King Of Bling" Tomb Revealed In Peru

             






Greenish with the patina of 1,500-year-old gilded-copper treasure, the Lord of Ucupe's burial site lies next to that of another male, who was in his late twenties. Beneath that male, invisible under as-yet-unexcavated dirt in June 2008, lies a pregnant woman. The lord himself was entombed atop another man.

"We don't know the relationships between the leader and the other males," said archaeologist Steve Bourget. And "this woman may have been a concubine or a wife. She may have died while pregnant."

Similarities between this and other Moche tombs may challenge a widely held theory that northern Moche settlements were highly independent. "I don't think," Bourget said, "the idea that they were organized into city-states will fly anymore."


—Photograph courtesy
Dr. Steve Bourget