1,400-Year-Old Skeleton Found at Lima Pyramid, Believed Sacrificed

Archaeologists in Lima, Peru, unveiled skeletal remains on Tuesday that they believe belonged to a man sacrificed as a ritual offering roughly 1,400 years ago.

The bones were found near the base of Huaca Pucllana, an ancient adobe pyramid in the Peruvian capital, and have been preliminarily dated to around A.D. 650, according to Peru's culture ministry.

Researchers believe the man may have been sacrificed during a ceremony in which a canal connected to a ceremonial pool was closed. Gladys Paz, the archaeologist who led the excavation, said the body was found buried inside the canal, resting on its left side, with the skull positioned to face the pyramid and the Pacific Ocean.

Paz said the remains will help researchers better understand "the rituals of the Lima culture" and reconstruct ceremonies performed centuries ago.

The culture ministry noted that the ceremonial well where the body was found was unusual for the site. "Unlike other known structures at Huaca Pucllana, characterized by the use of small mud bricks, this well was built with river stones," the ministry said in a statement.

The Lima culture flourished along Peru's arid central coast between the first and seventh centuries, about 700 years before the rise of the Inca Empire. Huaca Pucllana was one of its most important ceremonial and administrative centers. The culture had disappeared centuries before Spanish conquistadors founded Lima in 1535.

Today the pyramid sits amid parks and upscale apartment buildings in the Miraflores and San Isidro districts and is open to tourists, with an on-site restaurant serving Peruvian dishes such as ceviche.

Peru's government says more than 400 archaeological sites exist across metropolitan Lima. Pieter Van Dalen, an archaeology professor at the National University of San Marcos who was not involved in the excavation, said tombs, mummified remains and burial items are commonly found along Peru's coast, sometimes uncovered by construction crews. In July 2025, utility workers digging trenches for a gas network found two pre-Incan tombs more than 1,000 years old, and a month earlier workers found a 1,000-year-old mummy of a child during similar work.