Museo Arqueológico San Miguel de Azapa

The world's oldest mummies, in a small museum in the desert

The University of Tarapacá's archaeological museum, twelve kilometres up the Azapa valley, holds the largest collection of Chinchorro mummies in the world. The Chinchorro were a fishing people who lived along this coast from about 7,000 to 1,500 BC; they were the first culture on earth known to mummify their dead, doing so two millennia before the Egyptians.

The mummies are extraordinarily preserved by the desert climate — wrapped figures with painted clay masks, child-sized bundles, hair still attached. The museum also holds Tiwanaku-period ceramics, woven baskets, and the textiles for which the Atacama is famous. The site sits among olive groves; allow a half day with the bus and a leisurely lunch in Azapa village afterwards.

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A story
The Chinchorro began mummifying their dead around 5050 BC — some two thousand years before the Egyptians. The early mummies were of children; later, adults too were mummified. Bodies were disassembled, the soft tissues replaced with vegetable fibre and clay, and the skin reassembled around the rebuilt skeleton. Around 300 mummies have been found, mostly along the Arica coast.