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New tech helps archaeologists research the past
Archaeologists person uncovered the remains of what appears to beryllium a 4,000-year-old temple and theatre successful coastal Peru.
The find was made astatine the archaeological tract La Otra Banda, Cerro Las Animas, located adjacent the metropolis of Chiclayo disconnected the bluish seashore of Peru, according to a news release from the Field Museum successful Chicato.
Researchers started digging astatine the tract past period aft the section authorities alerted them to looting happening adjacent the accepted municipality of Zaña. Scientists needed to "study the country earlier it was destroyed," the section authorities said.
The excavation, led by probe idiosyncratic Luis Muro Ynoñán, revealed walls of mud and clay conscionable six feet beneath the aboveground and grounds suggesting that the operation was erstwhile location to an past temple.
"It was truthful astonishing that these precise past structures were truthful adjacent to the modern surface," said Muro Ynoñan successful the statement.
Archaeologists enactment connected what's believed to beryllium portion of a 4,000-year-old ceremonial temple, recovered buried successful a soil dune of bluish Peru, successful Lambayeque
Peru's Pontifical Catholic University/Handout via REUTERS
"We deliberation that a ample temple was built into the broadside of the mountain, and we've recovered 1 conception of it," said Muro Ynoñan. The Ministerio de Cultura, oregon Ministry of Culture, successful Peru said special ceremonies were held wrong the temple.
The squad besides uncovered what appeared to beryllium a tiny theatre with a "stage-like platform."
"This could person been utilized to execute ritual performances successful beforehand of a selected audience," said Muro Ynoñan.
Among the astir absorbing findings was a carving of a mythological vertebrate carnal etched into a mud sheet by 1 of the theater's staircases. Muro Ynoñán described it arsenic an "anthropomorphic bird" with "some reptilian features."
He and his squad person recovered akin representations of the mythological carnal connected different archaeological digs that day backmost to the Initial Period, astir 4,000 years ago.
Pieces of what's believed to beryllium portion of a 4,000-year-old ceremonial temple that had been buried successful a soil dune of bluish Peru are pictured aft they were recovered by a squad of archaeologists, successful Lambayeque, Peru, June 24, 2024.
Peru's Pontifical Catholic University/Handout via REUTERS
The findings, Muro Ynoñán said, could shed airy connected unanswered questions astir the origins of past religion successful Peru.
"The Initial Period is important due to the fact that it's erstwhile we archetypal commencement to spot grounds of an institutionalized religion successful Peru," helium said. "The vertebrate carnal astatine this temple resembles a fig known from the Chavín region, astir 500 years later. This caller tract could assistance uncover the origins of this religion."
According to the release from the Field Museum, the temple predates Machu Picchu — Peru's astir well-known archaeological site, located successful Cuzco — by astir 3,500 years. The Incas built Machu Picchu astir 600 years ago.
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