A cleaner who feared a body he found was a murder victim had in fact found a 900-year-old mummy . The preserved remains were discovered in a cardboard box by street cleaners in north-western Peru . The mummy , thought to date back to 1100 AD , was found wrapped in rope and dumped inside the box in front of an archaeological dig in the city of Trujillo . Scroll down for video . Grim discovery : Street cleaners who found the remains initially feared they had stumbled across a murder victim . It is thought to have been stolen from the archaeological site known as Chan Chan which was the capital of the Chimu Empire , an urban civilisation that appeared on the Peruvian coast around 1100 AD . The discovery was made in the early hours of the morning as the cleaners swept up the streets close to the dig . Cleaner Otilio Padilla Miramontes , 54 , said : 'It looked just like any other box dumped on the streets . Well preserved : It turned out the 'victim ' was in fact a stolen , 915-year-old Peruvian mummy . Forensics : Police were called by the cleaners who made the discovery by an archaeological dig site in Trujillo . Wrapped up : The mummified remains were discovered in a box , wrapped in rope , by cleaners in Peru . 'But when I opened it I nearly died of heart attack as I saw this grinning skull staring up at me . ' I had no idea it was an ancient mummy , I thought it was someone who had been murdered so I immediately called the police . ' A police spokesman said : 'We quickly established that this was not a recent skeleton . 'But we are now investigating how it ended up in a box outside of the main archaeological site . 'Our suspicion is that someone tried to steal it and had maybe left it in the box to collect later . ' The remains were taken to the regional Directorate of Culture for examination . A spokesman there said : 'This is not a Chimu mummy and is most likely pre-Hispanic suggesting it is from another culture pre-dating the Hispanic arrival . '
The stolen Peruvian mummy was abandoned by archaeological dig site . Street cleaners found the remains in a box and called police . Believed stolen from Chan Chan capital of Trujillo .