Dozens Of Skeletons Discovered Beneath Former Colonial Hospital In Peru
For decades, excavations at the site of the abandoned Hospital Real de San Andrés in Lima, Peru, have turned up finds like a 19th-century fountain, an early trash pit from the colonial era, and a mysterious vaulted structure. But some of the most exciting archaeology news from the site came in 2022 when researchers uncovered 42 skeletons beneath the hospital courtyard.
The hospital was founded in 1552 for the Spanish colonists, and the skeletons seemed to have been hospital patients. Most of them are male, and many bore signs that they suffered from syphilis.
Klebher Vasquez/Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesOne of the 42 skeletons found at the site of an abandoned hospital in Lima, Peru.
“The people who did not survive the treatment were buried here,” Héctor Walde, the chief archaeologist for the Lima municipality, explained. “The ritual and religiosity in Lima was very strong.”
The Hospital Real de San Andrés — which later became a hospice and then a public school before an earthquake shut it down for good in 2007 — is also the site of a local legend. Sixteenth-century chroniclers claim that the bodies of the last three Inca rulers, Pachacutec, Huayna Capac, and Tupac Yupanqui, were buried somewhere in the hospital crypt.
For now, however, there’s no sign of the Inca leaders.
