The Peruvian Police Found Mummy In Delivery Man's Cooler Bag

When Peruvian police searched a delivery man who had come to their notice for acting drunk at an archaeological site in Puno, they made a shocking find.

There was an ancient mummy in his cooler bag.

The bandaged mummy was described as "a kind of spiritual girlfriend" by the man who claimed to have been sleeping in the same room.

He claimed that he had put the remains in the bag so he could show them off to his friends.

He clarified that he kept the corpse, whom he had given the name "Juanita," in a box in his room, close to the TV. He said that it was owned by his father, without specifying how it had come into his father's possession.

Experts determined that the body was between 600 and 800 years old and that, contrary to what the man who was discovered with it had assumed, it belonged to an adult male rather than a woman.

The mummified male is estimated to have been more than 45 years old at the time of his death and 1.51m tall (4ft 11in), BBC reports.

The mummy was wrapped in bandages and was positioned like many pre-Hispanic burials in the region: in the fetal position.

Mummification was practiced by a variety of cultures in what is now Peru before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. During important festivals, some mummies were brought out and displayed while others were buried.

The mummy concealed in the cooler bag was seized by police, who then turned it over to Peru's minister of culture, which is responsible for preserving the nation's history.

The man who was transporting it and his two companions, who range in age from 23 to 26, were taken into custody and are currently being investigated for potential offenses against Peru's cultural heritage.