In 2006, the BASA Museum and the Egyptian Museum of the University of Bonn received on permanent loan a collection of objects from the Americas and Egypt, including a mummified person from the Nazca plain. Until then, this collection had been part of the exhibition area of a provincial ethnological-archaeological museum in the Lower Rhine region, opened in 1989. At the time of the collection’s arrival, the provincial museum was undergoing reconstruction.
Its director had enlarged the collection of his father, who had gathered objects from Libya and Egypt in the 1930s. From the 1960s to the 1980s, he, the son, collected objects from the Americas, particularly Mexico and Peru, not least because of his many years of residence in Mexico. Through his activities as a tour operator, he met the German mathematician and researcher of the Nazca Lines, Maria Reiche, through whom he acquired the mummified person. When he was appointed director of the provincial museum in 1986, the entire collection of father and son was no longer in private hands, but belonged to the municipality that ran the museum.
After arriving at the BASA Museum, the mummified person was part of the university’s exhibition space – and also part of a travelling exhibition entitled “Mummies: The Dream of Eternal Life”, which toured three museums in Europe between 2007 and 2009. This required a thorough medical examination:
It was determined that she was biologically female. She died around the year 1150, between 40 and 60 years of age. The sitting, squatting position is typical of Nazca and Paracas burials. The textile in which she is wrapped was typical of the south-central Andean region during the estimated period mentioned, the so-called Chuquibamba style – a fact that raises questions about trade routes and networks between the Nazca plain and the Andean regions.
After her return to the BASA Museum, it was on display for a short time before being moved to the museum's storage area due to doubts about the ethics of the museological treatment.

References:
- BASA Museum: „80 Mumie“, in: Tod und Macht. Religiöse Vorstellungen in Altamerika, 48–49. Bonn: BASA - Bonner Altamerika-Sammlung, 2006.
- Interview conducted with the collector and former director of the provincial museum, 07/08/2023.
- Anne Krieger und René Denhardt: „26 I Eine alt-peruanische Mumie aus der Bonner Altamerika-Sammlung“, in: Mumien: der Traum vom ewigen Leben, 356–57. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2007.
- Annette Paetz call. Schieck & Isa Fleischmann-Heck (eds.) (2022): Peru – ein Katzensprung. Die Sammlung präkolumbischer Textilien im Deutschen Textilmuseum Krefeld, Oppenheim/Rhine: Nünnerich-Asmus.
- Bodo Schwalm: Gräber auf meinen Reisen. Band 2, Geschichte(n) und Erinnerung. Norderstedt: Books on Demand, 2014.
- Callum Scott (2015): Differing treatments of the dead between three pre-Columbian South American cultures: Chinchorro, Paracas and Nascas, in: The Post Hole. The student-run archaeology journal 42, <https://www.theposthole.org/sites/theposthole.org/files/uploads/posthole_44_full.pdf#page=16, 16-22>.

In 2006, the BASA Museum and the Egyptian Museum of the University of Bonn received on permanent loan a collection of objects from the Americas and Egypt, including a mummified person from the Nazca plain. Until then, this collection had been part of the exhibition area of a provincial ethnological-archaeological museum in the Lower Rhine region, opened in 1989. At the time of the collection’s arrival, the provincial museum was undergoing reconstruction.

Human Remains ('Mummy')

mummy, peru, nazca, exhibition, heritage

Probably discovered in the 1970s during the construction of the Pan-American Highway and adjacent roads in the area of Ica, Nazca plain, and taken by Maria Reiche, who lived there. In the mid-1980s, the mummified person was given to the collector and later director of the aforementioned provincial museum in the Lower Rhine region, and transported to Germany. From 1989 until the closure of the provincial museum in 2004, she was part of the permanent exhibition. She remained in the closed museum until 2006, when she was given on permanent loan to the BASA Museum.

1970s/1980s

Nazca plain

Mummified squatting human, female body wrapped into a textile - Partly natural, partly forced mummification process with the help of other organic material

Inventory number: GB 600

Project: SciCoMove - Scientific Collections on the Move: Provincial Museums, Archives and Collecting Practices (1800-1950).
Funding: This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101007579.
The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the SciCoMove consortium and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union.

„Mummified Person from Nazca,” SciCoMove, zuletzt aufgerufen am 11. Mai 2025, https://ausstellungen.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/scicomove/items/show/14.