Researchers Find 1000-Year-Old Gold Mask Inside the Tomb of an Elite Man, Say It Was Painted With Human Blood

An astonishing find: Human blood proteins were found in the paint coating of a 1,000-year-old mask made of gold discovered in Peru. The finding has intriguing information about burial rituals of ancient times, according to the Journal of Proteome Research. The mask was found in the tomb of an elite Sicán man from the pre-Incas era, and thus it serves as a window into the highly developed cultural practices of this pre-Colombian civilization.

It came from a tomb excavated during the early 1990s with an unusual method of burial in which at the center of a 39-foot-deep chamber lay a skeleton of a man aged between 40 and 50, upside down, with bright red paintings. His skull had been detached from his skeleton, and placed on it was a skillfully designed mask of gold also painted in red.

But what made the discovery somewhat peculiar was how the other skeletons were placed within the grave. For example, the skeletons of two young women had been arranged to pose the posture of birth—one delivering while the other was assuming the posture of a midwife. Above them, researchers found the remains of two children in crouching postures; they must have made a deliberately worked-out symbolic placement, according to ACS.

What had intrigued the scientists, Luciana de Costa Carvalho, James McCullagh, and the team, was the outstanding toughness of the paint. Although being buried for one millennium, still the paint is attached to a metal surface, as if inviting them to probe its bizarre composition. The surprising detection was made by applying sophisticated analytical techniques, in particular, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and tandem mass spectrometry. By comparing these against known proteins, the team was able to identify six different proteins that exist in human blood, including serum albumin and immunoglobulin G, an antibody that exists in human serum. But adding another layer to this ancient recipe, the team also identified ovalbumin, a protein that comes from the whites of bird eggs, stated Live Science.

While the exact bird species remains uncertain due to protein degradation, researchers suspect the eggs may have come from the Muscovy duck, a bird native to the region. The use of cinnabar, a mercury-sulfur mineral that gives the paint its red color, was strictly reserved for elite members of Sicán society. This exclusive practice distinguished them from common citizens, who were limited to using ochre-based paint for their artifacts. The discovery of human blood in the paint mixture adds weight to archaeologists' theories about the symbolic significance of the burial arrangement.

All of these collectively amount to an elaborately contrived setup believed by the researchers to have represented a wanted "rebirth" of this sort of buried ruler, stated Live Science. The red, blood-like paint covering not just the skeleton but the mask itself was probably a life force, as one finds the life-endowing oxygenated blood since these are concepts very deeply linked with the mechanisms of death and rejuvenation.