Peruvian man found with centuries-old mummy in his cooler bag. He called the corpse Juanita, "my spiritual girlfriend."

A Peruvian man was searched at an archaeological site in Puno. And when police looked inside his delivery cooler bag, it was carrying just about the farthest thing from food – inside was a centuries-old mummy. 

According to the BBC, police had stopped the man for acting drunk at the site. He had a large red cooler bag with him, which officers then searched. In it, they found an ancient mummy that was in the fetal position. 

The man, identified by Reuters as Julio Cesar, told a local news outlet that the mummy's name is Juanita and that it had been in his family for 30 years, Reuters said. The local news outlet, Puno Sin Filtro, said that the bag belongs to delivery food service PedidosYa.

#PUNO Momia era trasladada en mochila de un delivery @pedidosya. @PoliciaPeru #terna intervino a joven y sus amigos libando junto a los restos arqueológicos de la época pre hispánica en el mirador Manto en Puno @MinCulturaPe @CNNEE @ReutersLatam pic.twitter.com/mI3cA2EOMb

— Puno Sin Filtro (@PunoSinFiltro) February 26, 2023

"It sleeps in my bedroom with me. There's my bed, the TV set and next to it, there's Juanita," he said on Saturday. "I take care of it. It's like, if you'll pardon the expression, as if it were my spiritual girlfriend." 

Peru's Ministry of Culture got custody of the mummy, saying a day after it was apprehended that it was a mummified adult male, presumably from Puno, that they believe to be between 600 and 800 years old. They took custody of the mummy to "protect and preserve the heritage," according to their press release. 

The mummy is believed to have been around 45 years old at the time of his death and now measures to be just under 5 feet, the BBC reported. 

Puno, known for being the birthplace of the Inca empire, is located in the South American country's southeast along Lake Titicaca. The mummy's estimated age means that he was likely alive during the reign of the Inca Empire, which rose in the early 1200s and ruled until around 1533, according to the Smithsonian Institution. 

The man and the two friends he was with at the time that they were confronted by police are now being investigated, the BBC said. 

In:
• Mummy
• Peru

Li Cohen

Li Cohen is a social media producer and trending content writer for CBS News.