Illegal squatters have invaded the ruins of America’s oldest city and made death threats against Ruth Shady, the famous Peruvian archaeologist who discovered the 5,000-year-old civilization.
The threats came via phone calls and messages to various workers at the archaeological site at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in Peru. They followed the reports to police and prosecutors about the invasions of the ancient ruins of Caral.
“They called the site’s attorney and said 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 will happen to you, ”she said.
It’s not the first time that Shady has been threatened or attacked. In 2003, she was shot in the chest during an attack on the 626-hectare 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 her team repeatedly asked authorities to intervene.
“There is a sense that there is no authority dedicated to the protection and defense of our heritage. It’s a huge concern, ”she said.
Caral card
In July, squatters knocked down mud walls with a heavy excavator and tore the ground, destroying ancient ceramics, graves with mummies, textiles and household remains before the police and site staff could stop them.
As a result of Shady’s pleas, a police car is now patrolling the archaeological site day and night, but nothing has been done to punish or expel the invaders.
The squatters are believed to belong to a single extended family and claim that the land was given to them in the 1970s during Peru’s controversial land reform, which was carried out by a left-wing military dictatorship.
Shady denies the claim: “They don’t have any country titles. The land is owned by the Peruvian state. “
A planned deportation of one of the squatters was thwarted in December when a local prosecutor and an official did not issue an order to proceed despite the support of police officers, Shady said.
Land prices in the area have soared from about $ 5,000 per acre to as much as $ 50,000 per acre as outsiders rush to buy land around the prestigious archaeological site surrounded by a 56 square mile buffer zone.
Shady, who was on the BBC’s 100 women list last year, first visited Caral in 1978. But it wasn’t until 1994 that she discovered the ancient city and started the site, which is located on a dry desert terrace overlooking the Supe river valley. nearly 200 km (124 mi) north of Lima.
What she discovered was the ‘oldest center of civilization in America’ described by UNESCO as ‘exceptionally well preserved’ with a complex architectural design featuring ‘monumental stone and earthen plateaus and sunken circular courts’. Organic material found at the site has been carbon dated to 2627 BCE
Shady and her team continue to investigate and excavate a dozen former settlements, half of the 24 in the Supe Valley that make up the Caral-Supe civilization. Their findings 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 be invaded and destroyed because it is an unwritten history and we are recovering that history through our research,” Shady said. “If we can’t, it’s like burning a book that no one will ever read.”
“I hope we can continue to investigate and continue to restore our history because it has such an interesting message,” she added. “It was a very, very peaceful society. We haven’t even found a single walled settlement. “
“There’s a message out there that we humans must live in harmony between ourselves and nature,” Shady concluded. “We are living through this pandemic in part because of our mistreatment of nature.”