Ancient city discovered deep in Amazonian rainforest linked to the legendary white-skinned Cloud People of Peru

A lost city discovered deep in the Amazon rainforest could unlock the secrets of a legendary tribe. Little is known about the Cloud People of Peru, an ancient, white-skinned civilisation wiped out by disease and war in the 16th century. But now archaeologists have uncovered a fortified citadel in a remote mountainous area of Peru known for its isolated natural beauty.

An ancient Chachapoyas village located close to the area where the lost city was found

It is thought this settlement may finally help historians unlock the secrets of the 'white warriors of the clouds'. The tribe had white skin and blonde hair - features which intrigue historians, as there is no known European ancestry in the region, where most inhabitants are darker skinned.

The citadel is tucked away in one of the most far-flung areas of the Amazon. It sits at the edge of a chasm which the tribe may have used as a lookout to spy on enemies.

The area where the lost city was discovered by a team of archaeologists

 

The Chachapoyas, also called the Warriors of the Clouds, were an Andean people living in the cloud forests of the Amazonian region of present-day Peru

The main encampment is made up of circular stone houses overgrown by jungle over 12 acres, according to archaeologist Benedict Goicochea Perez. Rock paintings cover some of the fortifications and next to the dwellings are platforms believed to have been used to grind seeds and plants for food and medicine. The Cloud People once commanded a vast kingdom stretching across the Andes to the fringes of Peru's northern Amazon jungle, before it was conquered by the Incas.

A mummy of a baby from the Chachapoyas culture

Named because they lived in rainforests filled with cloud-like mist, the tribe later sided with the Spanish-colonialists to defeat the Incas. But they were killed by epidemics of European diseases, such as measles and smallpox.n Much of their way of life, dating back to the ninth century, was also destroyed by pillaging, leaving little for archaeologists to examine.

Remains have been found before but scientists have high hopes of the latest find, made by an expedition to the Jamalca district in Peru's Utcubamba province, about 500 miles north-east of the capital, Lima. Until recently, much of what was known about the lost civilisation was from Inca legends. Even the name they called themselves is unknown. The term Chachapoyas, or 'Cloud People', was given to them by the Incas. Their culture is best known for the Kuellap fortress on the top of a mountain in Utcubamba, which can only be compared in scale to the Incas' Machu Picchu retreat, built hundreds of years later. Two years ago, archaeologists found an underground burial vault inside a cave with five mummies, two intact with skin and hair.

Chachapoyas chronicler Pedro Cieza de Leon wrote of the tribe: 'They are the whitest and most handsome of all the people that I have seen, and their wives were so beautiful that because of their gentleness, many of them deserved to be the Incas' wives and to also be taken to the Sun Temple. 'The women and their husbands always dressed in woollen clothes and in their heads they wear their llautos [a woollen turban], which are a sign they wear to be known everywhere.'

   

 Secret civilisation: a map of the region where the settlement was found

The Chachapoyas' territory was located in the northern regions of the Andes in present-day Peru. It encompassed the triangular region formed by the confluence of the Maranon and Utcubamba rivers, in the zone of Bagua, up to the basin of the Abiseo river. The Maranon's size and the mountainous terrain meant the region was relatively isolated.

Daily Mail

Hitler was the perfect boss: Former maid breaks her silence on the 'charming' dictator

By ALLAN HALL 

History has condemned him as the megalomaniac who brought death and misery to millions. But for one woman, the name Adolf Hitler evokes a smile not a shudder. She is Rosa Mitterer, who worked as a maid for the Fuhrer at his mountain retreat in Bavaria in the 1930s. Rosa is 91 and until now has kept a vow of silence about her experiences. She has chosen to break it after realising she is the last survivor of the circle who served the tyrant in the years before he launched the Second World War. And her verdict on her former master: 'He was a charming man, someone who was only ever nice to me, a great boss to work for. You can say what you like, but he was a good man to us.' Rosa's remembrances of life at the court of the tyrant make gripping reading. She saw leading Nazis come and go. Himmler, the evil party secretary; Bormann, whom she described as a 'dirty pig'; and the club-footed, sexually-obsessed propaganda minister Goebbels.

 

Rosa went into Hitler's service at the age of 15 in 1932 when she was Rosa Krautenbacher. Her sister Anni had worked as a cook at Hitler's Berchtesgaden retreat since the late 1920s. 'She said he needed a housemaid and I would fit the bill,' Rosa recalled. 'I remember so clearly the first day I spoke to him in the kitchen. I said I was Anni's sister and that made him smile, because Anni was his favourite. I only ever knew Hitler as a kindly man who was good to me.'

His former housekeeper was Geli Raubal, with whom it was rumoured he had a love affair. 'She shot herself in September 1931 and I was told as soon as I went to work for him that he was not to be approached on the anniversary of that day,' said Rosa. 'My sister and I shared a room that was directly over Hitler's. We could hear him crying.'

For a long time she and Anni were the only servants in the home, known as Berghof. Recalling her first direct request from her master, she said she was drying some porcelain cups when he came down the stairs. 'Hello,' he said softly. 'Sorry to trouble you, but could you make me some coffee and bring some gingerbread biscuits to my study?'

Coming into such close proximity to Hitler made her feel faint, she said, but she soon became accustomed to life at Berghof. 'I rose at 6am every day and put on a red-green dirndl with a white apron. My first task was to feed his dogs - he had three German shepherds at the beginning called Wolf, Muck and Blondi. 

'In those days, Hitler slept in his study. In it was an iron bed, one wardrobe, one table, two chairs and a shoebox. It was very modestly furnished. Beside the bed hung a picture of his mother.' She added: 'I didn't have to be a Nazi party member or anything. After a while I relaxed a bit. Apparently it was Hitler's orders that Anni and I be taken to church every Sunday because he thought this would be "good for us". 'Another time he came into the kitchen, saw me and said, "Ahh, I see our little one has grown a little plumper!".' 

A photo taken at Rosa's sister's wedding, which Hitler attended

 

Part of her duties involved sorting out the fan letters and presents that were delivered in their thousands to the house. 'There were cigars, jars of jam, flowers, pictures,' she recalled. 'We gave most of them away to poorer peasant families nearby on Hitler's orders.' Her time in service also allowed her to see at close quarters the woman Hitler kept secret from his people throughout his rule - Eva Braun. 'She was not so pretty close up,' Rosa recalled. 

'Himmler was always there too, thinner than what he looked like in the photos, and Goebbels. 'And Bormann, I didn't like him at all. He was a dirty pig.' By the end of 1934, the house was surrounded by minefields and SS checkpoints. Rosa said. 'I felt like a prisoner instead of an employee.' 

In 1935 she fell in love with local businessman Josef Amorts and handed in her notice. She was told she could leave immediately. 'I only met Hitler once more, on December 10, 1936, when Anni married Herbert Doehring, manager of the Berghof. He came to the wedding and was nice to me, saying he missed me.' 

Rosa married in 1939 and had three daughters. She later remarried. A great-grandmother, she now lives in Munich. After the war she had to confront the reality of the man for whom she had worked so willingly. And in particular the reality of the Holocaust. 'That he had ordered such terrible things, I just couldn't believe it,' she said. 'Even now, I prefer to remember the charming facets of his personality.'

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