Lima:
Police in Peru have seized a mummified human between 600 and 800 years old from a former food delivery man who claimed he had kept it for three decades.
The mummy was in the isothermal bag the man had once used to deliver food to people’s homes.
The man, 26-year-old Julio Cesar Bermejo, remains in custody while investigators investigate the case, a government official told AFP on Tuesday.
Bermejo told local media that the mummy, whom he called “Juanita,” was “like my spiritual friend.”
“At home she is in my room, she sleeps with me. I take care of her,” he said in a video that went viral on social media.
Bermejo said his father brought the mummy home nearly 30 years ago.
According to the Ministry of Culture, the pre-Hispanic relic was a “mummified adult male believed to be from the eastern part of Puno,” a region in the Peruvian Andes some 1,300 kilometers (more than 800 miles) southeast of Lima.
“It’s not a Juanita, it’s a Juan,” a ministry specialist confirmed, adding that the mummy belonged to a man at least 45 years old.
The body was wrapped in bandages in a fetal position.
Police found the remains in Bermejo’s bag on Saturday while on patrol in a park in the city of Puno, where he was hanging out with friends.
He denied trying to sell the mummy, saying he brought it because “my friends wanted to see it.”
The Ministry of Culture said it took possession of the mummified remains “with the aim of protecting and preserving this heritage”.
Peru is rich in archaeological sites and artifacts. The most visited tourist destination is the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, built in the 15th century near Cusco.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
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