María

The most famous Nazca mummy, she measures 1.68 m. Her fingers and toes have five phalanges.

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María, a hybrid mummy discovered near Nazca in Peru

Detail of a foot of the three-toed mummy María

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Features

Height: 1.68 m
Species: Jamin Palpanensis
Gender: female*
Hands and feet with 3 fingers
Fingers and toes with 5 phalanges
Presence of joints
Very well-preserved body, with visible skin and partially visible fingerprints on hands and feet
Absence of hair
Absence of auricles
Cranial capacity 19% higher than that of humans

* According to the latest studies, María is more likely to be male.

Discovery of María in Palpa near Nazca

Analysis of María’s X-rays by Dr. Edson Salazar Vivanco

Two radiologists from the Regional Hospital of Ica, commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, stated the following about María’s CT scans: “There is no evidence of manipulation.”

The head

The head is elongated and has a face length of 31 cm. Its cranial capacity is 20% greater than that of Homo sapiens. The eyes are also very large and almond-shaped. They measure 5 cm in diameter. The skull has no auricle, just a hole for the ear canal. Small nostrils without nasal bones are present. Finally, the head of “Maria,” which is in a satisfactory state of mummification, has no hair, eyebrows, or eyelashes.

The eye sockets measure 54 mm (35 mm in humans). The eye protrudes forward.

Maria probably had a dentist!
We can see evidence of healing from an operation that took place around 10 to 15 years before his death.

The hands and arms

The wrist of this Biological Entity (B.E.) is composed of carpal bones and measures 5 cm in length. The hand does not have a palm, similar to that of Homo sapiens. There are no metacarpal bones. It is a tridactyl being, with three fingers on its hands and feet, each consisting of five phalanges.

Each hand measures an average of 17 cm in length and appears robust. The nails are hominid in type and cover between 80 and 90% of the distal phalanx. In Homo sapiens, they cover only between 45 and 50% of the first phalanx. Fingerprints are still partially visible.

1 Carp
2-5 Phalanges
6 Distal phalanx
7 Fingerprint of one of the fingers

Fingerprints

Fingerprints are visible on the hands and toes.
They are different from those of humans.

Radius and ulna

The gap between the radius and ulna, 21 mm, is greater than that found in humans. His arm resembles that of a large primate.

The feet

Maria’s feet are 21 cm long and have the same anatomical features as her hands: hominid-type nails and fingerprints. These fingerprints, clearly visible on some toes, appear very different from those of known hominid species. The sole of the foot measures 7 cm. The toes are 14 cm long. The distal phalanges appear to have adapted to the evolutionary process of this species by being positioned at a 90° angle downward. The “pads” at the ends of the toes measure 1.2 cm in diameter. They probably served as support and cushioning for the toes during bipedal walking.

1 X-ray of Maria’s foot
2 Cross-section of Maria’s foot. The calcaneus is shown in red.
3 Cross-section of a Homo sapiens foot. The calcaneal apophysis, absent in Maria, is shown in light blue.

The difference between the feet of Homo sapiens and those of the mummy “Maria” lies not only in the presence of three toes, but also in the length and thickness of her phalanges and calcaneus, which is very large in “Maria.”

The calcaneus

Right foot and heel
Comparison with the human foot

A possible hip implant?

Following new CT scans performed on the mummies Maria and Wawita on September 13, 2024, at the Augusto Hernández Hospital in Ica, at the request of the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, the Inkarri Institute team confirmed the presence of a “dense object, undoubtedly metallic in nature,” located inside the bone mass on the left side of Maria’s hip.

The presence of this object (an implant?) had already been observed in 2017 by Cusco radiologist Raymundo Salas Alfaro. However, it was not possible to confirm the nature of the object at the time, given the insufficient resolution of the tomograph used. The object appears to consist of two distinct parts, clearly visible in the images and videos produced by our companion “Frop-Frop.” The blue color seems, at first glance, to confirm the metallic nature of the object, which is located in the hip bone. However, its radiation differs from implants already studied on other specimens. Is it really a metal part?

Dimensions and radiodensities

The organs

1 Heart
2 Bronchi
3 Spine
4 Shoulder joint

Based on the work of Dr. Raymundo Salas Alfaro

The organs of the “María” mummy are still inside the body, as is the brain. This specimen does not belong to any group of mammals. It cannot be linked to any known species of primates or hominids.