Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino

Seven thousand years ago, a group of simple fishermen from the coast of Arica, Chile, developed a surprising funerary technology.
They preserved their dead using a complex surgical procedure by which they replaced the body’s soft parts with branches, plants and mud. This artificial mummification of the Chinchorro culture is 2000 years older than the Egyptian technique. Unlike that one, which was reserved only for the highest dignitaries, this procedure was applied to people of any age, sex or social status. This form of preserving the body suggests a very special journey to the other life and it could have been a way to involve the dead in the ceremonies of the living. Many Chinchorro mummies show signs of repairs, proving that on more than one occasion they were disinterred.