Police opened the bag branded ‘Pedidos Ya’ – a Latin American food delivery app – and found the mummy, which the man named “Juanita”. Image source: Leandro Neumann Ciuffo, CC BY 2.0
Police made a shocking discovery when they searched a man at an archaeological dig site in Puno, Peru.
Police investigated the man, Julio Cesar Bermejo, as part of a routine security check when they suspected Bermejo and the two others with him were drunk at the site.
Police opened the bag branded ‘Pedidos Ya’ – a Latin American food delivery app – and found the mummified human remains.
Bermejo explained that the mummy lived with him at home, and he had given it the name “Juanita”.
He also said that he considered the mummy to be “a kind of spiritual girlfriend”.
Bermejo had brought the remains along with him in the delivery bag to show them off to his friends, he said.
“At home, she’s in my room, she sleeps with me. I take care of her,” he said to local media.
According to Bermejo, the mummy belonged to his father, but he did not explain how his father came to be in possession of it in the first place.
Experts believe that the mummy is somewhere between 600 and 800 years old, and is likely the body of an adult male, contrary to Bermejo’s belief.
It is also believed that the male was over 45 years old at the time of his death and would have stood at approximately 4ft 11in.
The mummy was bandaged in the foetal position, a practice which is typical of many pre-Hispanic burials in the region.
Prior to Spanish colonisation, mummification was practiced by a variety different cultures that lived in the region we know as Peru, including several civilisations that developed before and after the Inca empire.
Bermejo and the two others, aged between 23 and 26 years old, were detained by police and are being investigated for crimes against Peru’s cultural heritage.
The mummy is now in the custody Peru’s Ministry of Culture and has been classified as a national cultural asset.
