A Team of Archeologists Has Been Arrested in Peru for Excavating a Historic Cemetery During Lockdown

An archeologist and his team of
nine students have been arrested in Peru for continuing to excavate
at a pre-Colombian cemetery despite the country’s nationwide
lockdown.

The team, led by archeologist
Pieter van Dalen, were caught digging at the Macatón cemetery in
the town of Huaral during the state of emergency on Sunday, April
4. The group from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos were
taken into custody for breaching Peru’s strict lockdown measures,
despite their claim that they were simply securing the national
heritage that was left exposed at the site as agreed with the
ministry of culture.

The Peruvian minister of
culture, Sonia Guillén, who is herself an archeologist, told local
news outlet Canal
N that she
“deplores” the group’s actions in a time of national emergency. “It
is regrettable and shameful,” Guillén said.

The archeological team had been
given a permit to excavate at the archeological site about
50 miles north of the capital city of Lima, but the ministry of
culture says in a statement that the permit had been
“suspended” as a result of the
current confinement period to protect public health, calling the
subsequent breach an “irresponsible and unjustified
action.”

“We call on the general
population to respect all government provisions and especially to
show commitment and solidarity with others,” the ministry
says. Since the lockdown was imposed on March 16, more than
51,000 people have been arrested for flouting the rules, the
Peruvian president Martin Vizcarra said on Monday. The country
has so far recorded nearly 3,000 cases of the virus and more than
100 deaths since it first broke out there in March.

Artnet News reached out to
Pieter van Dalen but did not immediately hear back. Van Dalen
defended himself to the archeology magazine Lima Gris, explaining that when the state of emergency
was declared, many tombs remained open, leaving valuable funerary
items exposed to the elements or thefts.

In the interview, Van Dalen also
claimed that the ministry of culture was aware that the team was
continuing to work on the site in order to protect national
heritage. The archeologist says that he was left “between a rock
and a hard place” because he signed a letter taking responsibility
for any damage to the site between February and October,
2020.

“If any of the people who travel
through the archeological zone every day take any of these
materials or destroy them, the ministry of culture will denounce me
for destruction of cultural heritage,” he said, adding that “the
ministry of culture has not developed any protocol to safeguard
these materials.” 

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for Excavating a Historic Cemetery During Lockdown appeared
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