2023-07-21 17:10:00
Professor Cayetano Villavicencio moves freely among the piles of femurs and skulls that keep these dark galleries. He has been dedicated to its study and conservation for years and cannot hide a certain passion. “Look, some femurs are extraordinarily large,” he tells the visitor.
We are in the catacombs of the San Francisco de Asís Convent, in the heart of Lima. In the crypts excavated under this emblematic temple of the Peruvian capital rest the remains of thousands of people buried during the several centuries of Spanish rule. “It is the underground cemetery of Latin America”, proudly affirms Professor Villavicencio. The message is repeated by the tourist promotion web pages of the Peruvian Government.
The convent is a treasure of baroque art from the colonial era, built in 1535when the Franciscans and other religious orders began their implantation in America at the hands of the Spanish Crown, but what usually fascinates tourists the most are the skulls, femurs, clavicles, etc., which receive the visitor carefully aligned in what was once a cemetery.
“The most abundant are skulls and femurs because they are the bones that have been preserved for the longest time,” explains Villavicencio, but there are also sternums, coccyx fragments and other bone remains.
No one knows exactly how many people were buried here.. The most frequent estimates say that there were at least 25,000, although Villavicencio calculates that it could have been more than 100,000. “We know that in the convent there are many corridors and galleries in which there are burials that have not yet been excavated”, he points out.
It is presumed that there are many burials still to be excavated behind walls like this oneG. D. ELM
In reality, this was not the only religious center under which burials were carried out in the viceregal era, as the remains found in other churches prove. The suspicion of the experts is that Beneath the bustle of traffic in the epicenter of the Peruvian capital lies an immense necropolis to discover.
As he told BBC Mundo Archaeologist Pieter Van Dalen, from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, “only 30% or 40% has been excavated, but we are talking about a continuity of tunnels that extend throughout the lower part of the historic center of Lima.”
No one knows for sure how far these tunnels go, but local legends hold that they reach the very guts of the Government Palace or beyond, even to the port of El Callao.
What usually fascinates tourists the most are the skulls, femurs and clavicles that receive the visitor carefully aligned in what was once a cemetery GETTY IMAGES
The sepulchral crypts of the convent of San Francisco are the most impressive due to the large amount of remains and because since its rediscovery at the end of the 1940s, its exhibition was arranged for the public. It is a maze of galleries full of bones that can give the most squeamish visitors the chills.
“We had to signpost the route very well because some tourist got lost and got a scare”, says Villavicencio. But, mass burials were found in other churches in Lima, such as those of San Lázaro, Santa Ana and the Santísimo Corazón de Jesús, popularly known as the church of the orphans. In the latter, numerous remains of buried children were found.
Van Dalen explains: “These are funerary structures associated with churches, convents and monasteries, where in colonial times the entire population living in and around Lima was buried.”
The convent of San Francisco de Asís is one of the most outstanding monuments in the center of LimaGETTY IMAGES
“At first they were used only for the burial of religious, but over the years, due to the different epidemics and earthquakes that struck the city, civil burials began to be carried out there. Added to this was the widespread belief at the time that burying oneself under a temple facilitated closeness to God and, consequently, the salvation of the soul.
“They believed that by being close to the altar they were closer to God”explains Villavicencio, who has investigated social extraction and the way in which those who lie in the catacombs of the San Francisco convent were buried.
“Here Spaniards, Creoles, Indians and blacks were buried. There were no exclusions, despite the social hierarchy in force at the time. It used to be about members of some of the brotherhoods that were installed in the side altars of the church,” says Villavicencio.
At that time the brotherhoods or brotherhoods were very numerous and one of the most widespread forms of social grouping.
Professor Cayetano Villavicencio
Most remains are unidentified. It is not known who they belong to. But, not all were anonymous people. There are also prominent figures of the time, such as García Sarmiento de Sotomayor, viceroy of Peru between 1648 and 1655.
They used to be deposited without a box, one next to the other, separated only by a mound of earth that covered them. When a row of corpses was completed, another was started that would go on top, and so on..
The crypts were bricked up in the 19th century. When in 1949 the Franciscan monks of the convent decided to open them to see what they were like, they found a multitude of bones scattered on the ground. The discovery did not take long to capture the attention of the local media. and excite the imagination of the public and the space ended up being turned into a museum that can be visited.
No one knows exactly how many people were buried in the Lima catacombsGETTY IMAGES
On July 28, 1821, the Argentine general José de San Martín proclaimed the independence of Peru in the Plaza Mayor of Lima.. Concerned about the lack of sanitation in the city, San Martín, who had become Protector of the new independent Peru, prohibited underground burials in churches.
Even before that, some religious had expressed their concern about the continuation of a practice that endangered not only public health, but also perhaps the stability of the buildings.
Tens of thousands of people were buried for centuries in what is now the historic center of LimaCARLOS GARCÍA GRANTHON / GETTY
In 1808 the General Cemetery of Lima had been inauguratedtoday known as the Presbítero Maestro Cemetery, but the local population was reluctant to allow this new space to be their place of eternal rest and the custom of burying themselves in churches continued for some years.
But, over time it was gradually abandoned. ANDhe massive burial space of the San Francisco Convent was boarded up and abandonedbut its existence remained in the memory of the Franciscan community.
Only the work of archaeologists and historians can clear up the mystery of how extensive this funerary network was that lies under one of the most vibrant capitals in Latin America.
Professor Villavicencio recalls that there is documentary evidence that the square next to the convent and the Basilica of San Francisco were a cemetery in colonial times and everything indicates that the sepulchral crypts connected with it. “Joint work is needed with the authorities to carry out a rigorous investigation in the place”complains.
It is a maze of galleries full of bones that can give the most apprehensive visitors the chills GETTY IMAGES
Van Dalen points out that “theResearch on these areas has focused on tourism. It is more complicated to open up and value more remote areas, where we face possible security problems, landslides, lack of oxygen”.
For the researcher, one of the problems is the lack of resources. “In Peru, pre-Hispanic archeology faces many budgetary constraints; imagine how it is with colonial archaeology, which gets much less attention.”
*By Guillermo D. Olmo