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The squatters invaded the ruins of the oldest city in America and threatened to kill Ruth Shady, the celebrated Peruvian archaeologist who discovered the 5,000-year-old civilization.
The threats came through phone calls and messages to various workers at the archaeological site at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in Peru. Reports to the police and prosecutors about the invasions of the ancient ruins of Caral followed.
“They called the lawyer for the site and said that if he continued to protect me they would kill him, along with me, and bury us five meters underground,” said Shady, 73.
“Then they killed our dog as a warning. They poisoned her, as if to say, look what is going to happen to you, “he said.
It is not the first time that Shady has received threats or attacks. In 2003, he was shot in the chest during an assault on the 626-hectare (1,546-acre) archaeological complex that was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2009.
After nine invasions of the holy city during the pandemic period, Shady and his team repeatedly called on authorities to intervene.
“There is a feeling that there is no authority dedicated to the protection and defense of our heritage. It is a great concern, ”he said.
Caral Map
In July, squatters using a bulldozer tore down adobe walls and broke the ground, destroying ancient ceramics, tombs containing mummies, textiles and household remains, before police and site personnel could detain them.
As a result of Shady’s pleas, a police car now patrols the archaeological site day and night, but nothing has been done to punish or evict the invaders from the land.
The squatters are believed to belong to a single extended family and claim the land was handed over to them in the 1970s during Peru’s controversial land reform, which was pushed by a left-wing military dictatorship.
Shady denies the claim: “They don’t have a single property title. The owner of the land is the Peruvian state ”.
A planned eviction of one of the squatters was thwarted in December when a prosecutor and local official did not give the order to proceed despite the support of police officers, Shady said.
Land prices in the area have risen from around $ 5,000 per hectare to as much as $ 50,000 per hectare as outsiders rush to buy land around the prestigious archaeological site that is surrounded by a 56-square-mile buffer zone. .
Shady, who was named to the BBC’s 100 women list this year, first visited Caral in 1978. But it wasn’t until 1994 that she discovered the ancient city and began to properly excavate the site, which is situated on a terrace. dry desert overlooking the Supe River Valley nearly 200 km (124 miles) north of Lima.
What he discovered was the “oldest center of civilization in the Americas” which Unesco describes as “exceptionally well preserved” with a complex architectural design with “monumental stone monumentals and earthen platforms and sunken circular patios.” The organic material found at the site dates back to 2627 BC. C.
Shady and his team continue to investigate and excavate a dozen ancient settlements, half of the 24 located in the Supe Valley that are part of the Caral-Supe civilization. Their finds have revealed musical instruments such as flutes made from animal and bird bones and evidence of the cultivation of multi-colored cotton used in textiles.
“We cannot allow archaeological sites to continue to be invaded and destroyed because it is an unwritten history and we recovered that history through our research,” Shady said. “If we can’t do that, it’s like burning a book that no one will ever read.”
“I hope we can continue investigating and continue recovering our story because it has such an interesting message,” he added. “It was a very, very peaceful society. We have not found a single walled settlement. “
“There is a message there that we human beings must live in harmony between ourselves and nature,” concluded Shady. “We are experiencing this pandemic, in part, due to our mistreatment of nature.”
