LORDS OF SIPAN: A Tale of Pre-Inca Tombs, Archaeology, and Crime
by Sidney D. Kirkpatrick
(William Morrow, 1992, 256 pages, $25.00 cloth)

Lost civilizations, ancient pyramids, buried gold, stolen treasures, international smugglers, murder, treachery, and a tough-minded archaeologist patrolling a precious dig with a pistol strapped on his hip--at first blush, it sounds every bit like a script for the next "Indiana Jones" film. But in reality, it's the fascinating story of Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva and his efforts to rescue the most important Moche civilization site ever found: the 1600-year-old tomb of the Lord of Sipan.

In October, 1988, millions of National Geographic readers were treated to a tour of the tomb and its magnificent artifacts by Alva and UCLA's Christopher B. Donnan, the leading American expert on the Moche. In Lords of Sipan, Sidney Kirkpatrick unveils the details of a wild behind-the-scenes adventure only hinted at in Geographic's august pages.

That tale begins with a lucky discovery one night by a band of tomb-robbers digging into Huaca Rajada, an eroded adobe-brick pyramid in Peru's coastal desert. It ends, two deaths and two years later, in an American courtroom, with an unprecedented conviction for smuggling pre-Columbian art.

Drawing on extensive research and the cooperation of many of the principals, Kirkpatrick lays open the turbulent world of field archaeology in an impoverished country, where the researchers and the huaqueros are arrayed against each other in a quest for the same treasures. The sorry truth that emerges is that the Peruvian tomb-robbers far outnumber the archaeologists, and usually win--not only looting the tombs of their ancestors, but, in the process, destroying most everything not valuable enough to them to steal. What happened at Sipan is a microcosm of that struggle.

Kirkpatrick also offers an unsettling glimpse of the shadowy world of international antiquities smuggling, into which the huaqueros's discoveries quickly disappear--only to reappear in the private galleries of wealthy collectors, or be bought with no questions asked by legitimate museums. So many stolen treasures are in private hands, he reveals, that Donnan has been forced at times to pursue his own archaeological research in American mansions, rather than in Peruvian digs.

Though principally the story of Walter Alva's quiet real-life courage and dedication, Lords of Sipan is ultimately also a story of shameless greed--and of crime that, for many, did pay. The tragedy is that the eventual conviction of smuggler David Swetnam accomplished so little. The Department of Justice's timid prosecution never touched the more than twenty dealers and collectors directly involved in the trade in Sipan artifacts. Most of the stolen antiquities remain in private hands, outside Peru. Only a few hundred have been returned to the custody of the country whose cultural history they represent, and which Walter Alva has labored to uncover and preserve.

Lords of Sipan would have benefited from more extensive illustration. Its eight color plates are inadequate to portray the many dimensions of the narrative, much less of the still-mysterious Moche themselves. But Kirkpatrick's deft, open prose largely covers that weakness, painting illuminating portraits of the heroes, the villains, and the many ghosts of Huaca Rajada, and telling a tale easily as compelling as any fictional big-screen adventure.

--Michigan writer Michael P. Kube-McDowell is the Hugo Award-nominated author of eight science fiction novels, including Exile (Ace Books, 1992).

Return to Tribune Review Archive

Created: 17 March 2005
Last Revised: 07 July 2009 07:48 PM