Walter Alva
Encyclopedia
Walter Alva full name is Walter Alva Alva, is a Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

vian archaeologist
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

, specializing in the study and excavation of the prehistoric Moche
Moche
'The Moche civilization flourished in northern Peru from about 100 AD to 800 AD, during the Regional Development Epoch. While this issue is the subject of some debate, many scholars contend that the Moche were not politically organized as a monolithic empire or state...

 culture. Alva is noted for two major finds: the tomb of the Lord of Sipan
Lord of Sipán
The Lord of Sipán is the name of a mummy of an elite man found in Sipán by Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva in 1987. The tomb is in Sipán's Huaca Rajada, an area in Chiclayo.The Lord of Sipán tomb is a Moche culture site in Peru...

 and related people in 1987, and 2007.

Early life and education

Alva was born on 28 June 1951 in Contumazá Province
Contumazá Province
Contumazá Province is a province of the Cajamarca Region in Peru.- Political division :The province measures and is divided into eight districts:- References : Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática. . Retrieved December 24, 2007....

. He earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in archeology.

Career

Alva has worked for years at the Bruning Archeological Museum in Lambayeque, Peru
Lambayeque, Peru
Lambayeque is a city in the Lambayeque region of northern Peru. It is notable for its exceptional museums featuring artefacts from local archaeological sites. The Bruning Museum, established in the early 1900s, contains hundreds of gold and silver pieces, as well as textiles and ceramics, from the...

. He advanced to the post of director there.

Lord of Sipan

In 1987, Alva was called by police to investigate a site at Sipán
Sipán
Sipán is a Moche archaeological site in northern Peru that is famous for the tomb of El Señor de Sipán , excavated by Walter Alva and his wife Susana Meneses. It is considered to be one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the last 30 years, because the main tomb was found intact...

, where huaqueros (grave robbers) had stolen artifacts from an archaeological site. Despite being ill with bronchitis
Bronchitis
Acute bronchitis is an inflammation of the large bronchi in the lungs that is usually caused by viruses or bacteria and may last several days or weeks. Characteristic symptoms include cough, sputum production, and shortness of breath and wheezing related to the obstruction of the inflamed airways...

, he made the trip. The robbers had discovered a crypt of a lord, filled with jewels and gold, and Alva knew it was significant. Alva did most of the excavating without delay, as he was concerned that robbers might come back and cause more damage. As a result, he started digging without any funding or the support of the area police, with matters made worse as the result of the primary robber being killed by police.

After further digging, Alva found, among other things, the undamaged body of a Moche lord. From these finds, he and other scholars were able to determine that Huaca Rajada, a group of three pyramids once thought to belong to the later Chimú culture
Chimú Culture
The Chimú were the residents of Chimor, with its capital at the city of Chan Chan, a large adobe city in the Moche Valley of present-day Trujillo, Peru. The culture arose about 900 AD. The Inca ruler Tupac Inca Yupanqui led a campaign which conquered the Chimú around 1470 AD,.This was just fifty...

, were a part of Moche culture. The findings were later described by the National Geographic Society
National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society , headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical...

 as the richest intact pre-Columbian tomb in the Western Hemisphere.

During many of these years, Alva was the director of the Bruning Archaeological Museum in Lambayeque, Peru
Lambayeque, Peru
Lambayeque is a city in the Lambayeque region of northern Peru. It is notable for its exceptional museums featuring artefacts from local archaeological sites. The Bruning Museum, established in the early 1900s, contains hundreds of gold and silver pieces, as well as textiles and ceramics, from the...

.

Murals at Ventarron

In 2007, Alva discovered murals at a 4,000-year-old Peruvian temple in Ventarron
Ventarron
Ventarrón is the site of a 4,000-year old temple with painted murals, which was excavated in Peru in 2007 in the Lambayeque region on the northern coast, north of Peru's capital of Lima...

. The murals, showing a deer caught in a net, are considered the oldest murals in the Americas. Alva determined their age by the process of carbon dating
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...

. The construction material that was used at the temple was not primitive. As a result, Alva was able to show that the civilization was able to spread farther than originally thought. He worked on the dig with his son Bruno, who is also an archaeologist.
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