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Ancient Find: Tombs Filled with Dozens of Mummies Discovered in Peru

Dozens of tombs filled with up to 40 mummies each have been discovered around a 1,200-year-old ceremonial site in Peru's Cotahuasi Valley.
Image: Ancient human remains in tomb in Peru
A burial of a young woman found in the middle of a tomb in Peru's Cotahuasi Valley, where dozens of mummy-filled tombs were discovered.Matthew Edwards
/ Source: NBC News

Dozens of tombs filled with up to 40 mummies each have been discovered around a 1,200-year-old ceremonial site in Peru's Cotahuasi Valley.

So far, the archaeologists have excavated seven tombs containing at least 171 mummies from the site, now called Tenahaha.

The tombs are located on small hills surrounding the site. "The dead, likely numbering in the low thousands, towered over the living," wrote archaeologist Justin Jennings, a curator at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum, in a chapter of the newly published book "Tenahaha and the Wari State: A View of the Middle Horizon from the Cotahuasi Valley" (University of Alabama Press, 2015).

Image: Ancient human remains in tomb in Peru
A burial of a young woman found in the middle of a tomb in Peru's Cotahuasi Valley, where dozens of mummy-filled tombs were discovered.Matthew Edwards