A grave having nearly 400 people has been unearthed in Potosi-a Bolivian city. Presumably the grave consists of the remains of colonial-era miners and was discovered by workers carrying out excavations for the construction of a new building.
The Potosi mine became the world’s biggest mining place after silver was discovered by the Spanish, long back in 1545. Miners there included Africans and indigenous slaves and it is estimated that as many as eight million have died there. The mines at the Bolivian city were a large source of riches for Spain until the colonial rule came to a full stop in the 19th century.
Sergio Fidel, a researcher at a museum belonging to Potosi’s Tomas Frias University consented to this and said that the common grave is found about 1.8 meters beneath the earth surface and the human remains are scattered over an area of four by four meters.
The university intervened as soon as it got to know about workers piling up the bones in a heap while work was in progress. The last month, UN’s cultural body UNESCO included Potosi on its list of World Heritage Sites in danger due to uncontrolled mining operations in the Cerro Rico Mountain that risk the site already facing degradation.
