Angry mummies in movies such as The Mummy and The Mummy’s Curse are annoyed at having their centuries-long sleep disturbed.
In reality, mummy finds are greeted with great joy by everyone involved. Everyone except the mummies, of course! Mummies (preserved bodies of people and animals) offer important information about the lives of people who may have lived more than 3,000 years ago.
One spectacular mummy find was made in 1987. Walter Alva was director of the Bruning Museum in Peru. He was determined to find the origin of some very elaborate ancient goldwork that had begun to appear on the market. After much research, he discovered that the brilliant goldwork was coming from the village of Sipán in northwestern Peru, where a people called the Moche had lived between the first and eighth centuries A.D. Until recently, little was known about the Moche.
Dr. Alva began to excavate the site. He had no idea that he would come upon the richest tombs ever discovered by archaeologists in the Western Hemisphere.