Peru home build vexed by ‘the neighbors’: Inca-era mummies
Hipólito Tica had saved for decades to finally build himself a proper house in a working class neighborhood of Lima.
LIMA, Peru — Hipólito Tica had saved for decades to finally build himself a proper house in a working class neighborhood of Lima. His problem was what to do about “the neighbors” — as he called the centuries-old mummies buried below.
The mechanic had known they were there since the day in 1996 when he tried to dig a latrine on the lot, which is a few yards (meters) from the El Sauce archaeological site on the eastern edge of the Peruvian capital.
Taking a break from hefting bricks, Tica told The Associated Press that he had been working to loosen the earth with a metal rod when the ground suddenly began to collapse.
“I got out of there fast as a spider,” he said.
Tica found a flashlight and went to check out the hole that had opened at his feet, some 5 meters (16 feet) deep and 3 meters (10 feet) wide.
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