In every corner of Peru, we find pyramids and tombs.
The country is one enormous archaeological treasure, and experts estimate that only about 15% has been discovered.
Every day, gangs of ‘huaqueros’, or grave robbers, defile a little more of this world cultural heritage.
Each of the cavities we can see in these images corresponds to an ancient tomb desecrated.
It looks like a moon landscape. The majority of ancient cultures buried their dead with everything they possessed.
Alongside the burial site of an impoverished peasant may well lie that of a powerful landowner who,
on his journey into the after-life, took with him all his gold, turquoise and other precious objects,
and it is these which are sought after by collectors all around the world.
They grave robbers are poor.
They steal out of necessity, running the risk of being arrested.
The minimum sentence for raiding an archaeological site is 10 years imprisonment.
The sacred site of Sipan stands on a former Mochica cemetery.
Often, when a new grave is dug, they find a mummy, with its treasures of pottery and decorative objects.
Here is buried the first grave robber to enter the funeral pyramid of the Lord of Sipan,
the most important archaeological find in America in recent decades.
His name was Ernil Bernal. A fellow huaquero,
who entered the pyramid with him tells us the story.
Fortunately, they did not reach the chamber of the Lord of Sipan,
but they did destroy that of the priest. Entire generations of grave robbers have,
since the arrival of the Spanish, systematically destroyed the archaeological remains of Peru.
Every day, gangs unearth and ransack yet more ancient treasures,
which they then sell to the illegal dealers in antiquities –a few miserable dollars, but enough to feed their families.
These objects are made of gold, and come from the tomb of the Lord of Sipan.
The police seized them from the grave robber Ernil Bernal,
and they provided the clue for the archaelogist Walter Alva to discover this extraordinary Moche mausoleum.
Hundreds of pyramids remain to be excavated.
They look like hills, due to the effects of the rain which, though scarce
deforms them, causing them to blend into the natural landscape.