Huaqueo (from huaca) is the looting of an archaeological site, especially in Peru and other Andean countries.
The word "huaca", in the Quechua language, has the meaning of a sacred place, a temple. However, at present it defines those archaeological sites where remains of pre-Inca or Inca tombs are found.
From "huaca" the verb huaquear has been derived, which means to loot the contents of the archaeological remains by unscrupulous people dedicated to the illicit trade of cultural goods, huacos among others.
To illegally hunt means to forever prevent tracing a past, an identity and a cultural memory that are necessary to know and understand cultural differences and to reveal the secrets of the past. Huaqueros or guaqueros
It is known as guaquero or huaquero, in Colombia, the person who seeks the indigenous burials, also called guacas or huacas, to benefit economically from their findings. Usually, their methods of excavation are destructive, preventing a later archaeological study of the sacked tomb.
La Guaquera or huaqueria has widely dilapidated the historical and cultural heritage of the countries in which it takes place, generating a general damage to society.
The guaquero or huaquero bases its searches on archaic and, sometimes, metaphysical methods. The traditional huaquero of Latin America, is a person who uses his intuitions, and in the style of the shamans, he puts at the service of the search of burials his pretended knowledge of the life of the spirits. Many of them lack academic and historical knowledge, but with their personal conditions and using methods such as metal detectors, the radiesthesia pendulum, the fern rods, etc., they say they reach precisely the objectives selected by them. Huaqueo which is the verb called to the illegal excavation of huacos in Peru and the Andean countries Losses from looting
According to the experts, some 20,000 archaeological pieces per year are illegally extracted and exported from Peru, which entails a constant danger for the preservation of the cultural heritage. The law states that the undiscovered cultural assets, integrate the Cultural Heritage of the Nation, and those that were discovered in privately owned land, are owned by the State, because it seeks to protect the common past of all Peruvians. These special objects to be exported it is more difficult to know our history and the past.
wiki
