Archaeology: The Oldest Mummies in the World Did Not Come from Egypt

When we speak of mummies, collective memory immediately travels to ancient Egypt, with its pharaohs wrapped in linen and buried in monumental pyramids. However, archaeology has revealed a surprising secret: the oldest human mummies in the world do not come from the banks of the Nile, but from the Atacama Desert, in northern Chile.

This is the so-called Chinchorro culture, fishing communities that inhabited the arid Pacific coast about seven thousand years ago. Long before the refined techniques of the Egyptians, the Chinchorro were already practicing the mummification of the dead—not only leaders or warriors, but also children, women, and elders. A unique cultural trait, contrasting with the hierarchical logic of the great civilizations.

The first Chinchorro mummies date back to around 5000 BC, that is, two thousand years before the oldest Egyptian mummies. The bodies were carefully stripped of soft tissues, the bones treated and reinforced, and then reconstructed with clay, ash, and plant fibers, before being painted in shades of red or black. A laborious ritual, revealing a profound relationship with death and the memory of ancestors.

The greatest curiosity of these discoveries is that the Chinchorro built no pyramids and left no writing. Their legacy survives above all through the mummies and the silent respect with which they treated the dead. For them, mummification was not the privilege of an elite but a collective act of belonging, a gesture that united the living and the dead in the same destiny.

Today, the Atacama mummies are recognized as UNESCO World Heritage, a testament to their universal importance. They remind us that history is full of surprises: what we once thought exclusive to Egypt actually began in a remote South American desert, in communities that, without empires or temples, left one of the oldest marks of human civilization.

This discovery also compels us to reflect on the European gaze, so often centralizing, that for centuries built a historical narrative centered on the Mediterranean. Atacama reminds us that civilization has not one single origin but many, and that humanity’s memory is plural, woven by peoples who, even far from great centers, managed to leave lasting traces of their presence.

Paulo Freitas do Amaral

Professor, Historian and Author