A Peruvian mummy up to 800 years old was discovered inside a cooler bag of a food deliveryman who referred to the ancient male corpse as his “spiritual girlfriend” whom he dubbed “Juanita.”
The Ministry of Culture of Peru released photos Sunday showing the mummified cadaver resting in a fetal position inside a red bag emblazoned with the logo of the popular Uruguayan takeout app Pedidos Ya.
Police made the shocking discovery after the deliveryman was spotted drinking beer at an archeological site in the city of Puno Saturday.
The man, identified as 26-year-old Julio Cesar Bermejo, revealed in an interview with the local news outlet Noticias Sin Filtro Puno TV that he had been sharing his room with the centuries-old skeleton, whom he nicknamed “Juanita,” having mistakenly assumed it was female.
“It sleeps in my bedroom, with me. There’s my bed, the TV set and next to it, there’s Juanita,” Bermejo explained. “I take care of it. It’s like, if you’ll pardon the expression, as if it were my spiritual girlfriend.”
Bermejo said the mummy was given to him by his father and had been in their family for 30 years, but he did not explain where or how his dad had obtained the artifact.
On Saturday, the deliveryman brought the mummified cadaver to the deserted archeological site in Puno to show it off to his friends over beers. He denied trying to sell “Juanita.”
Police who were called to the scene seized the mummy and handed it over to Peru’s Ministry of Culture.
Officials stated that the pre-Hispanic mummy was, in fact, of an adult male measuring at 4 feet, 11 inches tall, who died around age 45 sometime between 600 and 800 years ago.
“It’s not a Juanita, it’s a Juan,” an expert at the ministry quipped.
Bermejo and his two friends were detained on suspicion of crimes against Peru’s cultural heritage.