Chauchilla Cemetery & Ceramics Workshop

Description Chauchilla Ica Cemetery Tour

With the “Tour in the Cemetery of Chauchilla Ica”, Ceramics Workshop in Ica, you can visit the only cemetery in Peru that allows to appreciate the mummies in their original tombs that have allowed to reconstruct the history, environment, daily life, uses and customs of this civilization swallowed by the sands of the Peruvian desert, in the ceramics workshop, we will observe how the Nazca artisans still use the techniques of their ancestors to make the ceramics, in a very short time and by hand.  Finally we will learn how they extract the gold brought from the hills and processed using mercury.

Tour in the Cemetery of Chauchilla Ica, is located about 30 km from the city of Nazca, in the department of Ica. It is a pre-Inca necropolis. Here you can see remains of the ancient civilization as well as fragments of pottery, textiles.

The mummies are in a good state of preservation despite their age and in many of them you can still see remains of hair and even some skin. The conservation has been possible in part thanks to the arid climate of the Nazca desert in which the cemetery is located. It is the only Peruvian archaeological site where the mummies can be seen in their original tombs.

As an open-air site, the area has been under continuous attack by looters, which has led to the disappearance of most of its archaeological treasures. However, since 1997, the area is protected and has become an official archaeological site, all this recoriido in the Chauchilla Ica Cemetery Tour.

In ancient Peru there was a belief in the afterlife, or in any case the reincarnation of the physical body, yet the corpses were not mummified by any artificial procedure. Instead, the best preserved remains respond to the characteristics of the soil where they are found.

Enjoy Tour in the Cemetery of Chauchilla Ica

MAIN POINTS OF VISIT

• Ica (406 masl)
• Chauchilla (557 masl)

Day 1: Nazca – Chauchilla Cemetery – Nazca

• Start of the trip to Ica: 08.45 hrs We will pick you up at the hotel in Nazca.
• Chauchilla Cemetery Tour: 09.00 hrs We will board the car and move to visit three interesting places: The first place will be the enigmatic cemetery of Chauchilla is located on the right bank of the valley Las Trancas. It is the only cemetery in Peru that allows us to appreciate the mummies in their original tombs that have allowed us to reconstruct the history, the environment, the daily life, the uses and the pantheistic customs of this civilization swallowed by the sands of the Peruvian desert.
• It is one of the largest with a length of 2 kilometers, here we will see 12 tombs, you will be able to observe the original constructions of tombs, mummies, ceramics and textiles with an approximate antiquity of a thousand years. You will be able to see individual and collective tombs; we will be able to observe the mummification process that the ancient Nazca used to preserve the bodies.
• Ceramic Workshop Tour: Afterwards we will go to the ceramic workshop. The Nazca pottery is considered the best pottery in South America so we will observe how the Nazca artisans still use the techniques of their ancestors to make the ceramics, in a very short time and by hand, you can also observe the oxides of minerals used to obtain the colors.
• Gold Extraction Workshop Tour: The last place we will visit will be the gold extraction workshop, in this place we will see how the material is brought from the hills and processed to extract the gold using mercury. We will explain the ritual that the miners follow before entering the mine, a ritual that is accompanied with the consumption of coca and aguardiente to have strength to work long hours.
• 12.15 hrs Arrival to the hotel in Nazca.

BREAKFAST – HOTEL / LUNCH and DINNER – PASSENGER