BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
I'll be honest with you, this mystery doesn't have an ending.
Five hundred years later, and we still don't know all the clues. That's OK, Lost Warriors of the Clouds still makes one heck of a detective story.
Tonight the Discovery Channel chronicles the rescue last year of 219 Incan mummies from deep in a Peru rain forest. It's the first in a quarterly series of "Expedition Adventures" funded by the science, technology and nature cable channel.
Bioarchaeologist Sonia Guillen of Peru organized the 12-hour, 25-mile horseback mission in 1997 after hearing that a remote 500-year-old mountaintop mausoleum has been pillaged.
Staggering collection
What she found was this staggering collection of mummies, each wrapped in a neat little bundle of fabric with a simple child-like embroidered face. Their internal organs had been removed, and their legs folded against their chests, for compact carriage. But when? By whom? How?
"There's quite a bit of possibilities," says Dr. Guillen, who combines biological information with her archaeological analysis.
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ON THE AIR
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What: Lost Warriors of the Clouds.
When: 9 p.m. today .
Where: Discovery Channel.
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"I just went there just to look at the mummies . . . because I was really intrigued that there would be mummies, that there would be organic materials still preserved in the jungle.
"We really are finding that this can become a mega-project," she says.
Dr. Guillen says the mummies were of Incas, though they were found in an area inhabited by a rival group called the Chachapoya, an Inca word for "people of the clouds."
Her team of scientists also were surprised to find bones -- some painted -- from 300 to 400 other people at the bottom of the mausoleum.
Why weren't they preserved? She doesn't know.
Perhaps they were buried before the Chachapoya learned the preservation technique. Maybe they were special people.
Buried alive?
Mummies hacked open by vandals revealed another startling puzzle -- their mouths were wide open. Were they buried alive?
"I'm sure some people will say: "It looks like they were screaming. They were buried alive.'
"Maybe having the mouth open let the spirits go out and go in," she says.
"The lack of rigor mortis . . . (and) just the gravity will let the jay go down. So there are still many things to identify."
Dr. Guillen's team removed everything from the ancient burial site -- bones, pottery, colorful tunics -- fearing that looters would steal or destroy the artifacts. The work had to be done in 10 weeks last year, before the rainy season.
"It was really a nightmare when we approached this as something to do, but we were very lucky. The logistics were very, very complicated, but there was no possibility of leaving this material there. It would have just meant destruction.
"These are our ancestors. You cannot keep theme there just perched on the balconies the way the looters left them," she says. Cable subscribers next year will see three more Expedition Adventure projects, the Discovery Channel's "most ambitious and expensive programming initiatives in our history," says Mike Quattrone, Discovery Channel general manager.
The multimillion-dollar project has funded explorations of:
- Cleopatra's palace submerged in the eastern harbor of Alexandria, Egypt (March).
- New species of deep-sea life off the south coast of Cuba (June).
- Napoleon's naval fleet sunk in 1798 by the British off the coast of Egypt (August).
"Expedition Adventure provides the Discovery Channel with the unique opportunity not only to produce terrific films, but actually participate in the discovery process," Mr. Quattrone says.
"We are now playing a vital role in the uncovering of some of the world's most fascinating secrets."
The Discovery Channel truly is living up to its name.
John Kiesewetter is Enquirer TV - radio critic. Write: 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202; fax: 768-8330.
