Centuries before Egyptians, the Chinchorro people of Chile‘s Atacama Desert mummified their dead.

Atacama Desert

The Chinchorro people, who lived in Chile's Atacama Desert, developed advanced mummification practices over 7,000 years ago, predating Egyptian mummies by at least two millennia. Archaeological discoveries reveal that the Chinchorros meticulously reconstructed bodies using plant fibers, seaweed ashes, and clay, often mummifying even unborn children due to high arsenic levels in local water sources that led to elevated mortality rates.

As nomads, the Chinchorros carried their mummified dead with them, only beginning to bury them with the advent of agriculture and ceramics. Despite limited knowledge about their language or social structure, the Chinchorros are recognized for their unique and enduring methods of honoring loved ones in one of the world's most inhospitable environments.

Ancient Chilean Chinchorro mummies reveal secrets of survival

In the world's driest desert, there are no pyramids or other magnificent structures to remind us of an ancient nomadic people who once lived here. At the Tarapacá Regional Museum, Chilean children visit these unique mummies, some of them 7,000 years old, predating their Egyptian counterparts by at least 2,000 years. Yet it wasn't until 1917 that a German archaeologist found the mummified remains of the Chilichorro people in Chile's Atacama Desert. They would remove all the skin, remove the viscera, all the soft tissue, until only clean bones remained. Then they reconstructed the body using strings made of plant fibers. They replaced the volume of the body with seaweed ashes, sand, sticks, using reeds to sew the skin back on. Then they covered them up with clay, before dressing them with skirts, feathers and necklaces. What you see here are adult women. This one has a baby on her chest. One can clearly see the child's small foot. The Chinchorros relied on hunting, gathering and fishing. As nomads, they didn't bury their dead. They carried them with them everywhere they went. The Chinchorros established themselves here around 5,000 BC in this incredibly arid desert. And this is where fresh water from ravines and streams was not only scarce but also toxic because of the high content of arsenic in this soil. And that's the reason why they had such a high death rate, which also explains why they mummified even their unborn. Fetuses were reconstructed with thorns or with birds' bones. Arsenic often killed unborn babies, and if the mother didn't have a miscarriage, she too would die of septicemia. So the reaction of this group was to conserve their loved ones for a longer period through mummification. With the advent of agriculture and ceramics, the Chinchorros began burying their mummies in the desert, where many remain to this day. Little is known about their social structure or language, only the Chinchorros' unique way of honoring loved ones, so often destined to die prematurely. Lucia Newman, Al Jazeera, Iquique, Chile.

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