(AFP)

Archaeologists announced on Wednesday that a thousand-year-old surgeon’s tomb had been unearthed in a temple in northern Peru, just before the Inca civilization.

“We succeeded in finding the tomb a thousand years ago for a role played by the surgeon in population culture,” archaeologist Carlos Elera told AFP.

The discovery took place in late 2021 at the Los Ventanas Church in the Bosque de Bomac Historic Reserve in the Lombok region, 800 km north of the capital Lima.

“This character specializes in trefoil and his surgical instruments are dedicated to everything related to human skull surgery,” said Elera, director of the National Population Cultural Museum.

The population culture, also known as the Lambayek culture, originated from 700 to 750 AD and lasted until 1375.

In pre-Columbian Peru, trepanation was a common practice to remove hematomas or broken skulls, often during wartime involvement.

The coffin contained a gold mask, a large bronze pectoral piece and other fragments that prove the condition of the buried person, who was discovered by archaeologists.

“In northern Peru, it is not uncommon to find such a person,” Elera explained.

Among the surgical instruments found were knives with semi-circular blades and others with wooden handles, awl and needles.

Archaeologists have unearthed unspecified pieces of wood used as painkillers.

“We compare the tools of the modern surgeon with these things and determine the similarity between them,” Elera said.