Utility crews unearth two 1,000-year-old tombs beneath city street in single day: 'Feels so exciting'

The workers, employed by the energy company Cálidda, found the burials in Lima just recently. The employees have been digging trenches in the city as part of an ongoing underground gas network project.

Both tombs belong to the pre-Incan Chancay culture, which existed in Peru from 1000 to 1470 A.D. The Inca Empire spanned from roughly 1400 to 1533 A.D., with Spanish colonization beginning soon after. 

The two tombs were remarkably different. 

Images show excavators working to remove the remains from the soil. 

The tomb also contained four clay vessels and three "pumpkin shell artifacts," according to The Associated Press (AP).

The male skeleton was found in a torn cloth bundle in a sitting position. Its legs were against its chest.

Archaeologist José Aliaga told the AP the vessels contained iconography, along with some remaining black, white and red colors.

"[It] allow[s] us to establish a connection with the pre-Incan Chancay culture," the archaeologist said.

Local mother Flor Prieto walked through the area with her 7-year-old daughter during the excavation. 

She told the AP she'd assumed the area had always been uninhabited.

"I always thought they were paths where no one had lived," Prieto observed.

This is far from the first skeleton that Cálidda has come across.

The skeleton, which still retained a small amount of brown hair, was found just 20 inches below the ground.