The Lady of Cao was buried with war clubs and a crown, the first Moche woman found with a ruler's emblems, with a teenage girl beside her

Before 2005 archaeologists believed only men held high rank in Moche society. In 2005 a team led by Régulo Franco Jordán, funded by the Wiese Foundation, found a burial chamber in the Huaca Cao Viejo pyramid at El Brujo. It held the mummified body of a woman of about 25, tattooed with snakes and spiders on her arms and hands. She wore a crown and was surrounded by gold and copper objects. Weapons lay in her tomb, including two large war clubs. She was buried with five people: two priests, two guardians and a teenage girl. A modern autopsy suggests she died of complications of pregnancy or childbirth^†. Franco says she was "a powerful ruler and not a priest"; the question is still studied. The Peruvian culture minister said in 2017 that her discovery showed the political and religious role of women in northern Peru. That year a 3D reconstruction of her face, built from her skull over 10 months, was unveiled. Her body is shown in the El Brujo site museum.