Death in Pre-Hispanic and Early Colonial Peru Jahl Dulantho, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú in Lima, Peru. Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire, sometime in AD 1533. Aided by thousands of natives, the Spanish conquerors, led by Francisco Pizarro, have taken the Inca capital just a few days ago. One of the Indian captains helping the Spanish is about to propose to an Inca princess. He approaches Francisco Pizarro asking for support. He hopes that having one these bearded taken-for-gods men at his side will impress the princess’ family. Francisco Pizarro commissions his cousin, the young Pedro Pizarro, to accompany the Indian Captain. Thirty years later, while writing his memoires, Pedro Pizarro clearly remembered what happened that day. To his great surprise the Inca lord to whom he asked for the princess’ hand was not a living person but a dead one –the mummified body of a man who passed away years before the arrival of the Spanish to Cuzco. More than a century of archaeological research has shown that what the Spanish observed in Cuzco in the XVIth century was just an example of a long tradition of practices surrounding death in the Central Andes. Several millennia before the Inca the Chinchorro of the south coast of Peru and the north coast of Chile were mummifying their dead and revering the objects manufactured in this way as their living ancestors. This lecture series is about the history of these practices –their origins and trajectory- within the broader picture of the Central Andean long historical process –the economic, social, political and ideological changes that took place in this area over the last few millennia. This lecture series is about the history of these practices, their origins and trajectory within the long historical period of the Central Andean area where economic, social, political and ideological changes took place over several millennia. Thursday, April 9, 15.15-17.00, LUX B:129 Death in the Andes: A critique of the theory of the late origins of ancestor cults in the Andes Monday, April 13, 15.15-17.00, LUX B:129 Historical and cultural trajectories of ancestor cults in the Andes before 500 B.C. Thursday, April 16, 15.15-17.00, LUX B:129 Historical and cultural trajectories of ancestor cults in the Andes between 500 B.C. and 1532 A.D. Monday, April 20, 15.15-17.00, LUX B:129 The Spanish Conquest and the Early Colonial transformations of mortuary and ancestor cult practices in the Andes Dr. Jalh Dulanto is our guestprofessor April 6 – April 30 within our Linnneaus-Palme programme. He is Coordinador de Arqueología, Profesor Asociado de Arqueología, Departamento de Humanidades at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú in Lima, Peru. Welcome to the open lectures! Kristina Jennbert