PARACAS - ICA (700 BC - 200 AC)

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Paracas is one of the most important and mysterious pre-Columbian civilizations. It was contemporary to the Chavin culture of the north and the study of this people raises very interesting questions about the ancient Peruvians.

The main knowledge of this culture comes from the excavations of Julio C Tello and his disciple Toribio Mejía Xesspe around 1920s. Tello named the new-found cemetery "Paracas Necropolis" but later it was proven to be two different cultures coexisting in the area, the necropolis belonging to a different culture: The Topará, who inhabited the area we now know as Chincha.

The Paracas are worldwide known for their extraordinary high-quality textiles made of wool and cotton. They also have high quality ceramics, mainly discovered as offering vessels filled with food of beverages, next to the mummies. This being the reminiscence of a culture that clearly believed in the afterlife, something pretty common in the Andean cosmovision. 

The mummies became famous for he complexity of the burial center. The Paracas buried their mummies in huge baskets. The bodies where covered with many layers of fabric. The quality and symbolism changing according to the proximity to the skin and the importance of the person. Some mummies had more than 12 textiles covering them, showing they were prominent people in the ancient days.

Even though complex architecture hasn’t been found nor linked to the Paracas, there are other proves that they were quite advanced for their time. Many of the mummies carry within themselves the proof of brain surgery and cranial trepanations. Something thought unbelievable at the time, since the theory of every indigenous population were “savages” was still the predominant one. 

Studies show that the Paracas used a fermented and highly alcoholic beverage (chicha) to drug the patient in order to perform the surgery. They used, cotton, gauze and bandages too. To cut through the skull they used the half moon shaped knife known as Tumi, originally made with a merge of gold and silver; as well as the obsidian knifes. 

Mummies show that a small hole was made, probably to release inner pressure or internal hemorrhage. Other mummies showed a bigger piece being removed, but both procedures covered the incisions with a thin gold plaque that, according to the cicatrization of the skull, seems to have healed perfectly providing strong evidence that people would indeed survive the procedure.

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