The Nazca "mummies": what the examinations found
Small desiccated bodies with elongated skulls and three-fingered hands, presented to the Mexican Congress in 2023. Peruvian authorities examined them. This one has an answer.
The Nazca region of southern Peru, where the figures were said to have been found.
In September 2023 two boxed figures were presented at a hearing in the Mexican Congress and described as non-human beings recovered in Peru. The images travelled worldwide within hours.
The bodies are small, desiccated, with elongated skulls, three fingers on each hand and three toes on each foot. They were said to be around a thousand years old and to be of unknown biological origin.
What was already known before the hearing
This was not the first appearance of these objects. Similar figures had circulated since 2017 in material associated with the same group of promoters, and had been examined before.
Peruvian archaeologists and the Ministry of Culture had objected publicly at that time, stating that the figures were assembled from human and animal remains — that is, made from real archaeological material, which is why scans show bone and why radiocarbon dates come back ancient.
What the examinations found
Peru’s Public Ministry and Ministry of Culture examined material seized in related cases. Forensic and archaeological specialists concluded the figures were manufactured — modern constructions using bones from pre-Hispanic burials, assembled with adhesive and shaped with modern materials.
Reported findings included cut marks, glue at joints, and bones from more than one individual and more than one species combined in a single figure.
Peru’s culture ministry has also pursued the matter as a looting issue — the serious offence here is the destruction of archaeological human remains to make the objects.
Why elongated skulls are not the anomaly
The skulls are real and they are human. Cranial deformation — binding an infant's head with boards or cloth while the skull is still soft — was practised widely in the ancient Andes, and in parts of Europe, Asia and Australasia.
It produces exactly the elongated profile seen in these figures and in genuine Paracas and Nazca burials. The skulls retain all normal human sutures, bone structure and volume; the shape is changed and the anatomy is not.
That is why the practice is so useful to anyone assembling a figure: authentic elongated skulls from looted burials are available, and they look extraordinary while being entirely ordinary.
Why it was believable for a moment
Because it was presented in a legislature, under oath, with scans and slides, alongside genuine scientific-looking apparatus.
The setting did the work. The Mexican Congress hearing was a public session convened on UAP transparency; the objects were introduced into it. A parliamentary room confers no authentication, and the same figures presented in a hotel conference suite would have been treated very differently.
Join the discussion
Still open on this one:
- 01
Will any sample be released to an independent laboratory?
It is the one step that would settle the promoters’ claim on their own terms, and it has not happened in nine years.
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See also
Everything this piece touches
Sources
Open them and check for yourself. Where a record is public, it is linked.
Lines and Geoglyphs of Nasca and Palpa
UNESCO World Heritage Centre
British Museum
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