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Aidan Laverty - Director
It’s sunset in the desert outside Lima, Peru, and we’re getting ready to film one of the strangest and most disturbing episodes in human history.
Our NatGeo/BBC film crew has come here to recreate a ritual of human sacrifice. The drama we’re filming tonight is based on extensive archaeological research from a city of abandoned pyramids in Northern Peru called Tucume.
It all happened over five hundred years ago but we’re determined to make this as factually - and as emotionally - accurate as possible.
Our cast and crew are over a hundred strong, and we’re a pretty strange looking bunch.
Outside our specially built temple, five priests are having their elaborate costumes fitted. The High Priest, who would have presided over the ceremony, is wearing a stunning silver head piece, festooned with blue and yellow feathers. Nearby, other priests are having jangling metal nosepieces fitted,
Most splendid of all is the ruler of the city who is now being carried in by six pallbearers. We know exactly what he used to wear because his mummy was excavated by archaeologists led by Alfredo Narvaez at the city of Tucume.
Nearby the priest who will carry out the human sacrifice is checking his curved metal knife, know as a tumi. The young man who will be playing the sacrificial victim is sitting quietly watching, as fires and torches are being lit. It’s no wonder he looks so nervous.
Tens of extras that will play the ordinary people of ancient Tucume are listening to a troop of musicians whose drums will pound the rhythm of this bloodthirsty ritual.
Our challenge tonight is to recreate a sense of what it was like to witness one of these terrifying ceremonies. But it’s about more than assembling accurate costumes and props. It’s about capturing what historians and archaeologists believe to be the extraordinary spirit of these rituals.
Because these ceremonies were not just a display of violence and bloodthirstiness, they had a deeper purpose. The people of the ancient Andes believed that by offering a fellow human, they could appease the anger of the gods who controlled their world. As they watched, they must have been desperately hoping the sacrifice would work, that some disaster that threatened their lives would disappear. The first rehearsal doesn’t go well. Everyone is too self-conscious. The actors aren’t used to their costumes. Some of the nose jewelry falls out. And no-one knows quite how to react when the victim’s throat is slit by one of the priests. The fake blood is very convincing.
I notice that behind me, some of the Peruvian technicians who are working with us are smiling. This doesn’t bode well.
We make some changes, and the actors begin to work their craft – it seems to me that are starting to inhabit their characters.
The High Priest now stands in the door of the temple, the light of the flares reflecting off his silver head piece, and he starts to chant. It’s a low murmur but everyone turns to listen.
Alfredo tells us that the blood of the sacrificial victim needs to play a more central role in our drama – in the way it would have done hundreds of years ago. Everyone gathered around the temple would have wanted to see it. Blood would have been daubed over the temple; perhaps even on people’s faces.
We’re running out of time now. We only have time for one last take.
Tim Cragg, the director of photography, is covering the scene like he’s shooting a documentary. Once the action begins, he will just follow whatever happens.
For the next ten minutes I’m glued to the monitor as I watch the drama outside our temple unfold. In ancient times it took place more than a hundred times; women and men of all ages sacrificed to appease the angry gods who controlled the world.
Tonight, in the desert outside Lima, it happens just once, but that is enough to sense some of the horror that must have gripped the inhabitants of Tucume five centuries ago.
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