The World’s Oldest Mummies Are Not in Egypt

by Ermiyas Abiy, age 9

When you think of mummies, you probably picture an Egyptian pharaoh wrapped in strips of cloth. It might surprise you to learn that the world’s oldest mummies are actually thousands of years older and found thousands of miles away.

The Chinchorro mummies of modern-day Chile were preserved more than 7,000 years ago, and are still being found to this day. The Chinchorro people began mummifying and preparing the dead for the afterlife in a harsh environment, with the driest place in the world located in Northern Chile or the Pacific coast of South America.

The Chinchorro inhabited the bays of the harsh Atacama Desert from around 5000 BC to 1500 BC. They developed the most unique techniques for mummification around 5000 BC.

While Egyptians only mummified important pharaohs, Chinchorros were inclusive and judiciously decided to mummify all dead people. The mummification process first began with babies before moving onto adults. The Chinchorro developed five different techniques of mummification over a timespan of 4,000 years.

Two of the most well-known techniques for this process are black and red mummies. To create black mummies, the Chinchorros needed to disassemble the body, remove internal organs, and then reassemble the whole body. The red mummy process was developed with small cuts and openings, which they used to remove the organs inside the body cavity. These kinds of mummies were often babies, which is why the Chinchorros didn’t take the whole body apart. However, both red and black mummies were stuffed with sticks, weeds, and whatever filled out the form of the body.

The site and artifacts relating to the Chinchorro mummies have been classified as a World Heritage Site since 2021. This classification has helped the people of Chile learn more about the history of these mummies and has helped to promote tourism to the area.

Max Uhle, a German archaeologist, first discovered the Chinchorro mummy and eventually made parts of the world cognizant of them. If you want to learn more about the Chinchorro mummy, you can visit the Site Museum Colon 10 of Arica, the National Museum of Natural History of Valparaiso, and the San Miguel de Azapa Archaeological Museum.

These interesting mummies and the Chinchorro people are amazing. Their styles of mummification are so unique. The Chinchorro people preserved these mummies really well, which made them known as the oldest in the world.

[Sources: Chile Travel; CNN]