Illegal fighters invaded the ruins of America’s oldest city and made death threats against Ruth Shady, the famous Peruvian archaeologist who discovered the 5,000-year-old civilization.
The threats came through phone calls and messages to various workers at the archeological site, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in Peru. Reports to police and prosecutors of the invasions of the ancient ruins of Caral followed.
“They called the site’s lawyer and said that if he continued to protect me, they would kill him with me and bury us five feet underground,” said Shady, 73.
“Then they killed our dog as a warning. They poisoned her, as if to say, look what will happen to you “, she said.
This is not the first time Shady has been threatened or attacked. In 2003, she was shot in the chest during an attack on the 626-hectare (1,546-acre) archeological complex, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009.
After nine invasions of the sacred city during the pandemic, Shady and her team repeatedly called on the authorities to intervene.
“There is a feeling that there is no authority dedicated to the protection and defense of our heritage. It’s a huge concern, “she said.
Map of Caral
In July, residents who used a heavy excavator tore down adobe walls and tore to the ground, destroying ancient pottery, graves containing mummies, textiles and household waste before police and site staff could stop them.
Following Shady’s requests, a police car is now patrolling the archeological site day and night, but nothing has been done to punish or evacuate the ground invaders.
The inhabitants are supposed to belong to a single extended family and claim that the land was given to them in the 1970s during Peru’s controversial agrarian reform, which was pushed by a left-wing military dictatorship.
Shady denies the statement: “They do not have a single land title. The owner of the land is the Peruvian state. “
The planned evacuation of one of the squatters was thwarted in December, when a local prosecutor and an official were not ordered to continue, despite the support of police officers, Shady said.
Land prices in the area have risen from about $ 5,000 per hectare to $ 50,000 per hectare as outsiders rush to buy land around the prestigious archeological site that is surrounded by a 56-square-mile buffer zone.
Shady, who was included in the BBC’s list of 100 women last year, first visited Caral in 1978. But it was not until 1994 that she discovered the ancient city and began to properly excavate the site, which is located on a dry desert terrace overlooking the Supe River Valley nearly 200 km (124 miles) north of Lima.
What he discovered was “America’s oldest center of civilization,” which Unesco describes as “exceptionally well-preserved,” with a complex architectural design, with “monumental stone mounts and earthen platform and sunken circular courtyards.” . The organic material found at the site was dated to carbon from 2627 BC.
Shady and her team continue to investigate and excavate a dozen former settlements, half of the 24 located in the Supe Valley, which are part of the Caral-Supe civilization. Their discoveries revealed musical instruments such as flutes from animal and bird bones and evidence of the cultivation of multicolored cotton used in textiles.
“We cannot allow archeological sites to be further invaded and destroyed, because it is an unwritten history and we are recovering this history through our investigation,” Shady said. “If we can’t do that, it’s like burning a book that no one will ever read.”
“I hope we can continue to investigate and further recover our history, because it has such an interesting message,” she added. “It was a very, very peaceful society. I didn’t even find a walled settlement. “
“There is a message there that we human beings should live in harmony between ourselves and nature,” Shady concluded. “We are living this pandemic, in part, because of our mistreatment of nature.”