Archaeologists say the Moche people were a warring nation given to human sacrifice, highly skilled in metallurgy and proficient in using complex irrigation systems to make desert lands produce bountiful harvests of cotton and corn. The Moche dominated a 300-mile stretch of Peru's northern coast from about 100 to 800 A.D. Their civilization mysteriously disappeared long before the Spaniards arrived in the 1530s and destroyed the better known Inca empire, which held sway hundreds of years after the Moche. The Huaca Rajada pyramid apparently was a giant mausoleum for a succession of Moche rulers, and archaeologists have recently discovered a second tomb, now under excavation, of another warrior-priest, although of lesser rank than the Lord of Sipan. ``It is as if we were making the Moche live again,'' archaeologist Chero said of the discoveries. The Moche did not have a written language. But Chero, whose copper skin and high cheekbones are mirrored in the faces on Sipan's golden masks, said the carefully placed layers of ceramic vessels with descriptive scenes found in the first tomb were like ``the pages of a book.'' Valuable information about the relationship of one object to another in a tomb is irretrievably lost when it is plundered by grave robbers, known here as ``huaqueros,'' a word meaning looters that is a spinoff of the Quechua word ``huaca,'' for holy place. ``Pottery is not placed haphazardly in tombs,'' Chero explained. ``It always is meant to communicate something. What the huaqueros do is terrible. They destroy everything and take the pieces out of their context.'' Huaca Rajada is honeycombed with tunnels and pock-marked with looters' pits. A vertical tunnel that Alva said was dug by huaqueros stops about 3 feet short of the burial chamber. Fifteen feet away near the top of the platform is another tunnel 20 feet straight down. It was there that huaqueros from the village of Sipan struck pay dirt in February 1987. Working day and night with guards posted to warn of the arrival of strangers, several dozen looters extracted what is believed to have been a treasure trove perhaps as great as that found by the archaeologists months later. Soon afterwards authorities noticed an influx of unusually fine gold and silver artifacts on the clandestine antiquities market. Some artifacts confiscated at the Los Angeles airport in April may include items stolen from Sipan. Alva has traveled to Los Angeles to study the pieces. Without a tip from jealous huaqueros, ``it would have been very difficult for the government to learn exactly where the gold was coming from,'' said Martinez. In a police raid in April 1987 at the home of one of the families looting the pyramid, a ringleader was shot and killed and some of the gold artifacts were rescued. When Alva and his assistants arrived at Sipan to excavate the pyramid, the villagers accused them of trying to take what was rightfully theirs and threatened them. The site is now protected by armed police and enclosed by a 10-foot-high barbed wire fence. ``Many people in Sipan say their families have dug through the temples around here for generations,'' Martinez said. Taking artifacts from ancient temples is prohibited, but Peru lacks the funds to enforce the laws or to finance archaeological excavations. ``There is no economic support in Peru by the government to conduct archaeological work on a large scale,'' said Martinez. ``The government is interested in projects that give quick returns.'' Chero said hundreds of temples on Peru's northern coast have never been excavated by archaeologists because of lack of money. ``Near Sipan alone, there are 15 pyramids. We have a good idea of where there may be tombs,'' he said. ``But without money, we can't excavate.''
