National Geographic Explorer (Student Magazine)

Archaeologists have spent the past few years studying an amazing discovery in Peru. Beneath a poor village lay a 500-year-old cemetery. It contained the bodies of some 2,200 people. They were native South Americans known as Inca. Slowly and carefully, scientists are examining "mummy bundles." These are huge cloth bundles containing mummies and special objects buried with them.

Print out this page (or get a copy from your teacher). Dig into Inca history at www.nationalgeographic.com/channel/inca/. Look carefully at the Cotton King mummy bundle. Then decide if these sentences are true or false.

1. Mummy bundles had false heads with elaborately painted faces.

2. A mace was an Inca farming tool.

3. Archaeologists found feathers in the Cotton King mummy bundle, so they think he was a big shot.

4. Only Inca servants wore sandals.

5. Inca craftspeople made plates and bowls out of gourds (dried squashes and melons).

6. Inca families considered beads the most sacred thing to place in a grave.

7. Archaeologists had never before found corn in an Inca grave.

8. The Cotton King mummy bundle contained 300 pounds of raw cotton.

9. The Inca used cactus spines to make combs.

10. Experts suspect that the Cotton King was murdered.

Teachers and students may make copies of this page to complete as a classroom assignment.