A mummy was found in a man’s cooler bag in Peru when police stopped and searched him for drinking alcohol at a cultural site.
The body is between 600 and 800 years old and was a man over 45 and about 1.51m (4ft 11in) tall, according to experts consulted by Peru‘s Ministry of Culture as reported by the EFE news agency.
According to local media, police discovered the body wrapped in bandages in a cooler bag of a man they had approached for consuming alcohol at a viewpoint in Puno.
Photos released by the Ministry of Culture show a skeleton in a fetal position, lying in a red bag bearing the logo of Pedidos Ya, a popular takeaway company.
The man said the body, which he called “Juanita”, belonged to him.
“He sleeps in my room, with me. There is my bed, the TV and next to it there is Juanita. I take care of it,” he told a media outlet.
“It’s like you forgive the expression, like it’s my spiritual girlfriend.”
However, the mummy was male and not female as the man originally thought, experts confirmed.
“It’s not a Juanita, it’s a Juan,” CNN quoted an expert from the Ministry of Culture as saying.
The Ministry of Culture said it took possession of the mummified remains “with the aim of protecting and preserving this heritage”, according to CNN.
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The man claimed the body had been with his family for 30 years after plans to donate it to a museum failed.
He and the two friends he was with at the time of the discovery were arrested.
Mummification was practiced by many cultures in what is now Peru over 7,000 years ago.
Some people kept mummies in their homes or brought them to festivals while others were buried.
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Mummy found in Peru in 2021 believed to be at least 800 years old
In 2021, a mummy estimated to be 800 years old was discovered on the central coast of Peru.
The mummy’s body was tied with ropes and the hands covered the face, which experts say is part of the local burial pattern in Peru.
