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American Morning

Archaeologist Discusses Discovery of Ancient Andean Mummies

Aired May 15, 2001 - 10:36   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: They are withered and shrunken, but their well-preserved forms give us a peek into ancient times. We're talking now about mummies.

Right now, they're a hot ticket on the big screen, as you've seen in the record-breaking film "The Mummy Returns," but mummies are also coming to the small screen. The History Channel tonight premieres "Cliff Mummies of the Andes." This two-part series begins at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. It uncovers an unbelievable find in Peru.

Joining us now is Keith Muscutt. He is with the Museum of Man and was the person who discovered the Chachapoya mummies in Peru. Keith is in San Francisco this morning.

Good to see you. How are you?

KEITH MUSCUTT, MUSEUM OF MAN: It's a pleasure to join you, and I'm fine, thank you.

HARRIS: I am so glad that you're here with us this morning because this story is fascinating. I don't even know where to start.

Let's start, first of all, with how was it that you actually found these particular mummies. As I understand it, you found them in something that's called a microclimate, which preserved them?

MUSCUTT: I've been exploring this area for about 20 years, mostly with a camera, and in 1999, I had the opportunity to get some permits from the Peruvian authorities to take in a climbing team and explore some of the cliffs up around 10,000 up in the Andes in the Chachapoya area. The climbing team was able to spot the particular tomb that we found on this expedition that the documentary deals with.

HARRIS: How many mummies did you find in this location?

MUSCUTT: The tomb contains the remains of about 35 individuals. I'd say about eight of those would count as mummy bundles that were in a good state of preservation.

HARRIS: Mummy bundles.

MUSCUTT: Yes, the Chachapoya had the practice of wrapping their ancestors in textiles, many, many wrappings of textiles, to preserve them, and then they deposited them in tombs high up on the cliffs in areas where the preservation was very good because of the ventilation, the humidity, and the microclimate that you referred to a minute ago.

HARRIS: So if this had happened in any other elevation or at any other piece of land, these mummies would not have survived in the condition they're in today.

MUSCUTT: I think this is perhaps the only part of the world -- certainly, one of few parts of the world -- where you have a high altitude humid tropical environment, where the indigenous people figured out how to mummify and entomb the ancestors in conditions where the preservation of normally perishable materials -- wood, textiles and basketry -- is really excellent.

HARRIS: In fact, one of comments I heard was that some of these things look like they were made yesterday. What does this discovery tell us about these people, or about the evolution or development of man and society in this particular part of the world?

MUSCUTT: I think that the first thing that it tells you, obviously, is that the members of the Chachapoya culture revered their dead, that they revered them sufficiently to try to preserve and protect them, to put them in a situation where we, in fact, believe that they revisited them, had conversations with them, used them as oracles, and...

HARRIS: Is that unusual or unique to this particular part of the world?

MUSCUTT: No, actually this is a Pan-Andean practice. I think this happened in many parts of the Andes. Certainly, we know from colonial records that the Inca continued to worship and revere the dead Incas. The deceased Incas could even collect taxes, if you can believe that. There's a horrible thought.

HARRIS: We've got guys in Washington that know how to do that.

Let me ask you about the Incas.

MUSCUTT: Let's not mummify them, then.

HARRIS: Well, some would argue that they're already there, or halfway. I won't go there, though.

Let me ask you about the Incas. As I've been reading about the history of that continent there, the Incas were so dominant everywhere, but you say that in this particular location, you didn't find any trace of the Incas.

MUSCUTT: The Incas weren't dominant until about the century before the Spanish arrived. They were very much latecomers on the Andean scene, and Chachapoya had had a high civilization in this area since, we think, about 850 A.D. They were eventually overrun by the Inca, who conquered practically the entire length of the Andes.

But prior to that, they had raised wonderful monuments and buildings and, as you can see in the documentary, had accomplished incredible feats of engineering in building the tombs on the cliffs. HARRIS: Yes, I saw movie "The Mummy Returns" this past weekend. I don't know if it's a tribute to the special effects or to the work of these people who preserve these bodies, but there's an amazing similarity between the two of them.

Keith Muscutt, thanks much for your time. This special comes up on the History Channel tonight, right?

MUSCUTT: That's correct. In our documentary you will see that we actually do return the mummies to the village nearest where they came from.

HARRIS: The literal return of the mummies.

Thanks much. That's 8:00 p.m. tonight on the History Channel.

Good luck to you. Take care.

MUSCUTT: Thank you.

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