Ancient mural rediscovered after more than a century

A team of student archaeologists has rediscovered a 1,000-year-old multicoloured mural depicting a deity surrounded by warriors that was last seen a century ago.

Known as the Huaca Pintada, the 30-metre-long wall was first found in 1916 by treasure-hunting tomb raiders in Illimo, near the city of Chiclayo. The mural’s splendour was captured in photographs taken by Hans Heinrich Brüning, a German ethnographer. But the grave robbers destroyed part of the wall after being forbidden from looting their find, and the site fell back into obscurity.