Exploring the "Thousands of Mummies" in the Canary Islands

The mummy was once placed in the legendary Tenerife cave, its location lost to history, but experts may have pinpointed its coordinates. Photography: FERNANDO VELASCO MORA

Written by: THE NATIONAL ARCHEOLOGICAL MUSEUM, MADRID

After walking about 4 kilometers on the cliff path leading to the sea, I stopped. Here it is: a cave with an entrance barely visible. I looked up at the nearby rock and felt it staring back at me, beckoning me to the treasures within: hundreds of caves carved out of Mount Teide's lava flows over the centuries. Any one of these could be the object we are looking for—a place where the brush of history has not yet touched.

Tenerife is the largest island in Spain’s Canary Islands; in 1764, Spanish ruler and infantry captain Luis Román discovered an amazing cave in a gorge in the south of the island. A contemporary local priest and author described the discovery in a book on the history of the islands: “A wonderful pantheon has just been discovered,” wrote José Viera y Clavijo: “There are mummies everywhere, at least a thousand of them. "Tools." In this way, the story of Thousand Mummies begins.

There is nothing more exciting than walking between the blurry edges of history and legend. Now, two and a half centuries later, in the Barranco de Herques – also known as the “Canyon of the Dead” because of the funerary caves – we find ourselves in what local archaeologists call the “Millennium Valley.” Mummy Cave". There are no written coordinates here and its location has been passed down orally through a handful of people. Hikers who venture along the trail are unaware of its presence.

The volcanic tectonic foundation of the archipelago created a system of lava tubes on Tenerife, an ideal burial environment. PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROBERT HARDING, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION

In the company of islander friends, I had the privilege of visiting what they consider to be the resting places of their ancestors. I leaned toward the narrow opening, turned on my headlamp, and lay on my stomach. To find this hidden area, we crawled a few meters. After passing through the small space, we were rewarded: a high and spacious space suddenly appeared in front of us, leading to the past of the island.

"As archaeologists, we think the statement of 'thousands of mummies' may be a bit exaggerated, but it is just a way to show that there are indeed many mummies here, many - hundreds of them," local historian , said Egyptologist Mila ?lvarez Sosa. In the darkness, our eyes slowly adjust. The lava tubes are part of a volcanic system spread across the island. We searched for clues of the cemetery in the winding lava tubes.

This is not the first mummy unearthed on the island. But according to local legend, large tombs like this one house a pantheon of nine kings who ruled the islands in pre-colonial times.

The location of the cave is a closely guarded secret and there are no records of it, which only makes the cave a trophy of Canarian archeology. Locals insist on keeping the location secret in order to preserve the memory of their ancestors who rest here; their ancestors were the ancient Anche people, the original inhabitants of the island, who no longer exist today. Another theory is that it was buried forever because of a landslide.

To 18th-century explorers, what is certain is that these became legend: the mummies were removed from their resting places, and their location was lost. These precious mummies (from this and other caves), well preserved and part of the museum collection, are helping scientists understand the story of the islands: When and where did the first inhabitants come from, and how did they commemorate their dead?

In the 1764 book, there is an etching of a burial cave in Tenerife. The engraving is based on the description of a Welsh doctor who claimed to have been there. It matched the description of a cemetery discovered 20 years later by a Spanish captain, known as the "Cave of a Thousand Mummies." Photo courtesy: CHARLES-NICOLAS COCHIN, ANTIQUA PRINT GALLERY / ALAMY

Preserving the dead and pursuing eternal life

Since 1494, Tenerife has been the last Castile island in the archipelago. An island ruled by the Erns. This was not the first confrontation between the islanders and the Europeans, but it was the last. In ólvarez Sosa's imagination, the two sides were contrasting: at the end of the 15th century, the Renaissance was coming, and warriors arrived in ships, wielding swords on horseback. What they had to face was a group of people who had just appeared in the Neolithic Age. These cavemen wore animal skins and used weapons made of sticks and stones. “But they respected the dead and prepared them for their final journey,” Sosa said. “They preserved the dead.

Fascinated with death, the colonists recorded funeral rituals in detail. "This was the main thing that attracted the attention of the conquerors of Castile," says ólvarez Sosa. They were very interested in preparing mummies (xaxos The embalming process of the "mirlado" was of particular interest.

In the darkness of the cave walls, I imagined Luis Román, filled with the spirit of enlightenment, entering in the company of locals. Cemetery, tasked with retrieving some specimens for study, he must have been filled with awe when he transported the bodies back to Europe; in 18th-century Europe, mummies were scientific curiosities and novelties, prized by scholars and collectors. Interesting. I imagined the moment when Román held up the torch and discovered hundreds of corpses frozen in time. It is interesting that the author of the summary report left out this location. The goal was to protect the cave from looting, but unfortunately he failed to do so: in 1833, multiple sources confirm that no bodies were left.

I stood up and shook off my hands and knees. White dust. My headlamp dimly illuminated the cave walls, knowing the odds were slim, but I still hoped to find a mummy in some nook or cranny, just like Viera y Clavo had described.

The method of preserving corpses against time and nature is surprisingly simple. “It’s the same process we use to prepare food,” said álvarez Sosa: “The corpses are treated with dried herbs and animal fats and then left to dry in the sun. Dried and smoked with fire. "It takes 15 days to make a mummy, compared to 70 days for an Egyptian mummy (40 days to dehydrate in natural sodium salt, then 30 days to embalm with oil and spices, then fill the cavity with straw or cloth, and wrap it in linen Cloth). Another key difference is that, according to chronicles, Canarian women were involved in the disposal of female corpses.

Geneticist Rosa Fregel removed one of the mummy's teeth. DNA testing is conducted to trace the origins of these early islanders. Photo courtesy: THE GOLDEN MUMMY, STORY PRODUCTIONS

Afterwards, the deceased's family disposes of the mummy, placing it in an animal skin (usually goat's skin). ) in carefully sewn bags. The number of skins corresponds to the social status of the deceased. This practice is not limited to Tenerife, where mummies have also been found decorated with etchings. Painted in various colors, wrapped in reeds and placed in hollow tree trunks, bodies were also found in funerary caves there.

"We still have a lot of questions, and there are very few samples to study," said archaeologist, María García, curator at the Institute of Biological Anthropology in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, said she carefully cataloged the history, age and origin of the 30 mummy remains in the drawers of the institute. The mummified remains of men, women and children were discovered by hikers and shepherds at the site in Tenerife. Here it comes: What happened to "Thousands of Mummies"? Or is it all a fiction?

"This is systematic looting," María García said bluntly: "In the 17th and 18th centuries, for Europe For the educated classes, mummies were a temptation. Our mummies travel the world, find their way into museums and private collections, and some are even ground into aphrodisiac powder. ”

Some may have been buried at the bottom of the sea. ?lvarez Sosa proposed in the book "Tierras de Momias" (The Land of Mummies) that during the process of sailing to the mainland, the mummies may have died due to the suitable environment on the ship. Decomposed and thrown into the sea.

Although there are more than thirty complete mummies and remains of ancient Anche people, we know very little about the burial site. "Archaeologists have never found it in its original environment. ever mummy," explains María García.

It is the most intact of the 40 mummies in the museum's collection. In 2016, it was scanned by a Madrid hospital, allowing researchers to scan it without damaging the structure. premise, looking inside. Photography: RA?L TEJEDOR, RTVE / STORY PRODUCTIONS

Looking for answers

This is not my first trip to the Canary Islands. 8 Years ago, I climbed down the cliff walls of the canyon and visited more than a dozen caves in search of legends. I also re-read chronicles from the 15th and 16th centuries and visited experts to explore the origins of the early inhabitants of the Canary Islands.

These are the mythical Lucky Islands where ancient Mediterranean sailors landed. Later Europeans who encountered these islands in the Middle Ages discovered that, unlike other archipelagos in the Atlantic, they were inhabited and seemingly isolated. centuries.

Chronicles mention tall Caucasians, which led to the refutation of the hypothesis that they were descendants of Basque, Iberian, Celtic and Viking sailors whose ships were lost in succession. I left the island with nothing. But modern technology has put an end to this centuries-old mystery, and the mummy has finally revealed its secrets.

"It looks like a wooden statue of Christ," radiologist Javier Carrascoso said of the 900-year-old ancient Anche mummy, whose hands and feet were carefully bound. Photography: FERNANDO VELASCO MORA

Photo courtesy: THE NATIONAL ARCHEOLOGICAL MUSEUM, MADRID

If the place I am exploring now is the cave described by Viera y Clavijo, then the first mummy came from here A long journey began. This twists and turns story began in 1764, when it was shipped to Madrid as a gift to King Carlos III, so that the court could appreciate the ancient Anche people's skills in bringing immortality to the dead. In 1878, the mummy was exhibited at the Paris World's Fair and was later returned to Madrid, where it remained for more than a century in what is today the National Museum of Anthropology. In 2015, it came to its current resting place: the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid. In June 2016, under strict protection, the mummy embarked on the shortest journey: to a nearby hospital for a CT scan.

"We have done CT scans on several Egyptian mummies," said Javier Carrascoso, deputy director of radiology at the University Hospital of Madrid in Quelon Salud, which has proposed extending the technology to ancient Anche. Human mummy. The data from this scan overturns the hypothesis of simple natural dehydration and the idea that the ancient Anche mummification process originated 4,800 kilometers away in Egypt.

"It's impressive," Carrascoso said, "that the ancient Anche mummies are much better preserved than the Egyptian (mummies)." Muscles can still be observed and, in particular, can be outlined in detail Outline of hands and feet. "It looks like a wooden statue of Christ," he said. But the most remarkable thing is hidden: Unlike their Egyptian counterparts, the ancient Anche mummies were not eviscerated. The organs, including the brain, were intact; this was thanks to a mixture of minerals, aromatic plants, pine and heather bark, and dracaena resin, which prevents bacterial growth and putrefaction inside and outside the body. Radiocarbon dating in 2016 revealed a tall, healthy man who may have belonged to the elite based on the condition of his hands, feet and teeth. He was aged between 35 and 40 years old and died 800 to 900 years ago, well before the Castilians arrived. The spine exhibits deformities common in North Africans, and the facial features point to the neighboring continent.

This brightly colored illustration is the cover of the first written record of the Norman conquest of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands, which began in 1402. The nobleman Jean de Béthencourt allied himself with the Kingdom of Castile, possibly in search of fuel and textile resources. In 1888, the British Museum acquired this book: Codex Egerton 2709. Drawn by: BRITISH LIBRARY/ALBUM

For years, Rosa Fregel, a researcher at the University of La Laguna in Tenerife, has been studying the island's early inhabitants, applying the latest DNA sequencing technology to the remains of 40 mummies. The findings correspond with earlier tests that showed the mummies were undoubtedly related to North Africans: they were the first inhabitants of the Maghreb, the northernmost part of the Mediterranean coast. This does not mean they arrived at the same time or from the same place. "What we found is that each island group has its own identity," she explains, so not all islanders in the archipelago are alike.

African Origins

Etymological, epigraphic, and ethnohistorical data all point to an African origin, and the scientific community now agrees on this. North Africa was the domain of the Numidian tribes centuries before Islam was introduced to the region. The Greeks and Romans contemptuously called them Berbers (meaning "barbarians"), while the Numidians called themselves Amazighs, or "free peoples." They farmed and raised animals, and some came to the islands with business and livestock. Why did they abandon their home in North Africa? How did they get to these islands, which are about 100 kilometers off the coast?

“We always talk about waves of migration,” said Teresa Delgado, director of the Museum of the Canary Islands in Las Palmas. “But maybe it’s just a few groups of families arriving at different times. Maybe it’s because Events that took place in North Africa, from Roman rule to the arrival of Islam, triggered the period of migration."

According to José Farrujia, professor of archeology and history at the University of La Laguna in Tenerife. According to reports, seven of the eight islands have been inhabited for at least the past 10 centuries.

They share the same physical characteristics and speak a language that evolved from Libyan Berber and is now lost. Farrujia also noted that cave paintings found in the archipelago are similar to those found in the Atlas Mountains of Western Sahara, Algeria and Morocco.

The first known image of early islanders comes from Italian engineer Leonardo Torriani, who was sent by the King of Spain to arrange fortifications in the islands. Around 1590, his maps and paintings were collected in a book, including this one of La Gomera. Drawn by: LEONARDO TORRIANI, courtesy of: THE GENERAL LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COIMBRA

But ***’s knowledge only goes so far. Historians have proposed various theories of immigration. One hypothesis is that the Berbers rebelled against Rome from 25 BC to 25 AD, and the first inhabitants of the island were exiled Berber rebels. "Roman law made banishment to the islands a punishment," Antonio Tejera Gaspar once wrote of the engagement. "Since the fall of Carthage, the situation in the entire region has been on the verge of breaking out."

He believes that the king who exiled the rebels was Euba II. Many historians agree that Juba II, the son of the defeated king Juba I, discovered the Canary Islands. He was educated in Rome and married Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of Cleopatra and Mark Antony. In an effort to assimilate the locals, Auguste gave the couple administration of Mauritania (which stretched from present-day Tunisia to Western Sahara). Juba II was a scholar, writer, and naturalist who explored extensively in and around his domain: according to Pliny the Elder in his Natural History, Chronicle of Juba II (lost) Records of the expedition to the Lucky Islands in 46 BC. This was the first time that islands were named, one of which he called Canary Island. He described the natural features of each island. "If he didn't mention people, it's because the island is uninhabited," Tejera Gaspar said. He noted that this would have to wait until the next century, after the Romans had expelled the rebels. Tejera Gaspar believes that the colonists were not there for resources or wealth, since the island had neither.

Up in the air

Maybe not. After pottery fragments were discovered on the small island of Lobos in 2012, another explanation emerged: early settlers may have frequented the islands for their natural resources. Archaeologists have found imported pots, lanterns, hooks and harpoons made from non-native materials, some from Andalusia - artifacts commonly found on trade routes in the western Mediterranean. Based on shellfish deposits found in the same area, researchers determined that seasonal workers came to the makeshift settlement to harvest red-mouthed rock snails, a mollusk that was used to make the precious Tyrian purple dye used by Roman emperors. "A workshop producing purple dye shows that this archipelago was within Roman territory and that this territory was already explored," explains María del Carmen del Arco, an archaeologist at the Isla Lobos site. The site dates back to Roman times. She also noted that Roman ships may have transported new species of organisms, such as animals, plants, and people.

However, Carmen del Arco said that Pliny the Elder mentioned earlier groups, earlier than Roman times, and this date is also supported by archaeology. Some ruins date back to the 6th century BC in Tenerife and to the 3rd century BC in La Palma. "It all makes sense if the islands are inhabited from east to west, from closest to the farthest from the African coast," says José Farrujia

Farrujia described the Cave paintings showing ships similar to those of the Phoenicians. "We cannot conclude that they did not know how to sail," Farrujia said. "There may have been boats, but the perishable material would not have left archaeological remains." There is also the possibility that people were enslaved and involuntarily transported The ship arrived, and then the ship left.

Wild blue thistle, a huge flower endemic to Tenerife. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JORDI BUSQUE, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION

Some scholars believe that radiocarbon dating of these sites is inconclusive. And as Conrado Rodriguez, director of the Natural and Archaeological Museum of Tenerife, points out, no human remains found on the island so far date back to the 4th century AD. Confirming the ancestry of early inhabitants requires new archaeological discoveries, new evidence.

Who are we? In the final analysis, all questions come from the exploration of human origins. The answer may lie in an unexplored cave, a cemetery, an etching. With ravines and canyons, hardened lava flows, caves, and wind-blown sand, the island's topography will help keep these secrets.

I turned off my headlamp and sought refuge in the silence that sheltered me like a womb. I feel no cold, no heat, no fear.

I came looking for answers and left with questions still lingering. My colleagues, all from the Canary Islands, make an old porcelain bowl called a canico, similar to the vessel the ancient Anche people used to drink milk and make covenants. They asked me a simple question: Can you swear not to tell anyone where this cave is?

I couldn't see their eyes in the dark, but I knew they were just as excited as I was. With them and the spirits in the caves over the centuries as witnesses, I answer: Yes, I swear.

(Translator: Sky4)