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A man in Peru was found to be carrying a mummified corpse up to 800 years old inside a food delivery bag, local authorities confirmed via NBC News.
The Directorate of Culture in the city of Puno shared photos of the skeleton in the fetal position inside a red thermal bag with reflective inner lining, which has the logo of Pedidos Ya, a Uruguayan takeout company with locations throughout South America. The department described the corpse, which was located during a joint operation with the Peru National Police, as "an adult mummified male individual" with a "relative chronology of 600 to 800 years old" in a statement shared on Sunday (February 26) via NBC News.
The body is now property of the state in adherence with national heritage laws. Julio Cesar, who had been taken into custody in relation to the incident, told local media company Noticias Sin Filtro Puno TV that the body belonged to him.
“It sleeps in my bedroom, with me," Cesar said via NBC News. "There’s my bed, the TV set and next to it, there’s Juanita. I take care of it. It’s like, if you’ll pardon the expression, as if it were my spiritual girlfriend.”
Scans conducted on the body later showed that it was a male. Diario Cajamarca Noticias, a Peruvian newspaper, reported that Cesar's family had obtained the body and he had taken it out to show his friends.
The Peruvian Culture Ministry urged locals to help “in the defense and protection of our precious heritage, communicating to us any finding or attack on movable or immovable cultural heritage" in response to the incident.