San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
From Salta in Argentina, we went through the Andes to San Pedro de Atacama in northern Chile, passing through some lovely scenery.
The town of San Pedro is very small and mostly caters to the tourist trade. However, it did have a nice church with a roof made from cactus.
And here´s a picture of Karen waiting for me as I got money from the ATM. Note her 4 bags!
And I couldn´t resist including this picture of the "invisible man".
San Pedro also has a great anthropological museum that was first started by a Belgian priest stationed in the area from the 1950s onwards. Some of the coolest exhibitions were those of mummified skeletons. The dry desert climate leads to good preservation. There were a few museums we went to in Argentina that had to take down their displays of skeletons due to various controversies. Fortunately, that wasn`t the case in Chile. I´ll call this section "Pirates of the Atacama Desert".
An excavation site, with skeletons and tools.
Before the arrival of the Spanish, almost all bodies in South America were not buried laid out flat but usually in a balled up position, oftentimes placed in an earthenware jar, like this one.
This picture is of a body buried just before the arrival of the Spanish. That is the mummy´s real hair.
Finally, the museum showed that after the arrival of the Spanish, the natives adopted the Spanish burial custom of laying the body out flat.
In the photo below, you should be able to notice the very flat forehead on the skull on the right. In many parts of South America in pre-Incan times, they would tie a baby´s skull to purposefully deform it. A high broad forehead was a sign of nobility. I guess that explains my skull formation! ;)
And, if you ever wanted more proof that Native Americans are descended from Asians, just check out the similarity between these two mugs.
Many of the pre-Columbian museums in South America that we have visited show the many trays and such that held hallucinogenic drugs. Of course the priestly caste tried to keep these for themselves, warning the regular people of their dangers. It was only safe for trained priests to go "to the other side" with the drugs and reveal what they saw. What a great deal for the priests: keep the drugs for themselves and get people to pay them for their habit, all the while telling people that they were doing dangerous things for their benefit!
The town of San Pedro is very small and mostly caters to the tourist trade. However, it did have a nice church with a roof made from cactus.
And here´s a picture of Karen waiting for me as I got money from the ATM. Note her 4 bags!
And I couldn´t resist including this picture of the "invisible man".
San Pedro also has a great anthropological museum that was first started by a Belgian priest stationed in the area from the 1950s onwards. Some of the coolest exhibitions were those of mummified skeletons. The dry desert climate leads to good preservation. There were a few museums we went to in Argentina that had to take down their displays of skeletons due to various controversies. Fortunately, that wasn`t the case in Chile. I´ll call this section "Pirates of the Atacama Desert".
An excavation site, with skeletons and tools.
Before the arrival of the Spanish, almost all bodies in South America were not buried laid out flat but usually in a balled up position, oftentimes placed in an earthenware jar, like this one.
This picture is of a body buried just before the arrival of the Spanish. That is the mummy´s real hair.
Finally, the museum showed that after the arrival of the Spanish, the natives adopted the Spanish burial custom of laying the body out flat.
In the photo below, you should be able to notice the very flat forehead on the skull on the right. In many parts of South America in pre-Incan times, they would tie a baby´s skull to purposefully deform it. A high broad forehead was a sign of nobility. I guess that explains my skull formation! ;)
And, if you ever wanted more proof that Native Americans are descended from Asians, just check out the similarity between these two mugs.
Many of the pre-Columbian museums in South America that we have visited show the many trays and such that held hallucinogenic drugs. Of course the priestly caste tried to keep these for themselves, warning the regular people of their dangers. It was only safe for trained priests to go "to the other side" with the drugs and reveal what they saw. What a great deal for the priests: keep the drugs for themselves and get people to pay them for their habit, all the while telling people that they were doing dangerous things for their benefit!
posted by Kevin at 4/26/2007 08:21:00 PM
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