Mummies in movies such as The Mummy and The Mummy’s Curse get angry when awoken from their centuries-long sleep.
In reality, mummy finds are a cause for celebration for everyone involved. Everyone except the mummies, that is! Mummies are the preserved bodies of people and animals. They give us important information about people who may have lived more than 3,000 years ago.
One amazing mummy find was made in 1987. Walter Alva was director of the Bruning Museum in Peru. Some elegant ancient goldwork was being offered for sale, and he wanted to know where it was from. He did a lot of research and found that the brilliant goldwork was coming from the village of Sipán in northwestern Peru. A people called the Moche had lived there between the first and eighth centuries A.D. Until recently, little was known about the Moche.
Dr. Alva began to excavate (dig up) the site. He was about to find the richest tombs ever discovered by archaeologists in the Western Hemisphere.
