The boy from DetmoldIt’s a baby mummy found in the Andes of Peru. It is currently one of the oldest mummies in the world and the oldest in Peru found so far, over 6400 years old, in a good state of conservation. There is not much background on the mummy or how it arrived in […]

The boy from DetmoldIt’s a baby mummy found in the Andes of Peru. It is currently one of the oldest mummies in the world and the oldest in Peru found so far, over 6400 years old, in a good state of conservation.

There is not much background on the mummy or how it arrived in Germany, perhaps the product of a (grave ransacking). It was named The Detmold Boy by its owners Lippisches Landes museum in Detmold, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

Originally, the mummy was owned by the Völkerkundliches Museum (Ethnological Museum) in the city of Witzenhausen. It was then donated to Lippisches Landes museum Detmold, where it was professionally preserved. In 2010, the mummy was analyzed in the context of the German Mummy Project and its historical and cultural importance was realized.

Officials at the Lippe State Museum in Detmold, Germany, revealed that the boy Detmold died aged eight to nine months after suffering a rare congenital heart malformation, known mainly as Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS), a condition with parts of the left side of the heart does not fully develop. The syndrome combined with the contracted pneumonia had led to the baby’s death. It was also discovered that the child had a vitamin D deficiency. The body had been covered with cotton and buried with an amulet hanging around its neck.

It is worth noting that it features an elongated Paracas-style skull.