Francisco Pizarro, Ahead of His Time
By Lee Klein

Francisco Pizarro
I first visited the Cathedral in Lima, Peru, in 1979, and saw the mummy of Francisco Pizarro. The mummy had been placed there back in 1891, when Peruvian officials, wanting to prominently display the “Founder of Lima,” had the body moved from the chapel in which it had lain for the previous 350 years.
But was this really Pizarro? Just prior to my visit, workers cleaning a crypt beneath the altar found two wooden boxes, one containing the bones of five people—one missing a head! The other box held a lead casket on which was inscribed in Spanish, “Here is the skull of the Marquis Don Francisco Pizarro, who discovered and won Peru and placed it under the crown of Castile.”
Francisco Pizarro died a violent death. On June 16,1541, while he was having dinner in his governor’s palace, a group of men, led by the son of his ex-partner, Diego de Almagro, broke in and stabbed him to death. As he lay dying from multiple sword wounds, he drew a cross on the ground in his own blood, kissing it, and crying “Jesus.” Continue reading
