The fully preserved attraction for visitors to Museum of Andean Sanctuaries in Arequipa, Peru is without a doubt the remarkably well-preserved corpses.
Tresses of dark hair are still intact, and the skin on her hands and arms, discolored, shows almost no decay. The museum’s discoverer, Johan Reinhard, even made note of just how perfectly the museum’s skin had been preserved, “down to visible hairs.”
As peaceful as she looks – a far cry from some of the ghastly mummies that researchers have discovered – Juanita’s life was cut short one day that ended with her being sacrificed to the Inca gods.
Mummy Juanita is on display at the Museum of the Nation in Lima, Peru. March 1999. Scientists estimate that Juanita was between 12 and 15 years old when she died as part of Capacocha, a sacrificial rite among the Inca that involved the deaths of children.
Translated as “royal oblation,” Capacocha was the Inca’s attempt to ensure that the best and healthiest among them were sacrificed to appease the gods, often as a way to stop a natural disaster or ensure a healthy harvest. Considering that Juanita’s body was discovered atop Ampato, a volcano in the Andes, her sacrificial journey likely led into the Inca’s mountain worship.
Preparing for Death Juanita’s life prior to her selection for human sacrifice probably wasn’t all that unusual. Her days leading up to her death and subsequent from the lowest of a typιcaι Inca girl. Scientists were able to use DNA from Juanita’s well-preserved hair to create a timeline of these days and deduce what her diet was like before capture.
Marks in her hair indicate that she was selected for sacrifice about a year before her actual death and switched from a standard Inca diet of potatoes and maize, along with large quantities of coca and alcohol.
In the role of forensic and archaeological expert, Andrew Wilson provided a detailed account to National Geographic of the final six to eight weeks of life for Inca child sacrifices. They were immersed in a highly intoxicating psychotropic state induced by the chemical reaction of coca and chicha alcohol.
These archaeological experts believe that in Juanita’s case, she was likely in a very deep and relaxed state. While the Incas would deliberately perform this drug mixture – which, combined with the mountainous high altitudes, would cause the child sacrifices to fall into a permanent sleep – Juanita’s situation wasn’t so fortunate.
Julia’s Death Revelation – Forensic Radiologist Elliot Fishman would reveal that Julia’s death was brought about by a massive hemorrhage from a club blow to the head. Fishman determined that her injuries were “typical of someone who has been hit by a baseball bat.” After the death blow, her skull swelled, pushing her brain to the side. Had blunt trauma to the head not occurred, her brain would have remained unharmed.
Juanita’s Discovery – Dated sometime between 1450 and 1480, Juanita would sit alone in the mountains until she was uncovered in September 1995 by anthropologist Johan Reinhard and his Peruvian clinician partner, Miguel Zárate.
If it weren’t for volcanic activity, it’s possible that the mummified young girl would have continued to sit on the frozen mountain top for centuries to come. But because of the volcanic activity warming the snow throughout, Mt. Ampato’s snowcap began to melt, revealing the wrapped mummy and her burial site on the mountain.
Reinhard and Zárate discovered the small bundle of mummified remains inside a crate on the mountain, along with numerous burial items including pottery, shells, and small figurines.
The thin, cold air 20,000 feet up near the summit of Mt. Ampato had kept the mummy incredibly well-preserved. “The doctors have been shaking their heads and saying [the mummies] sure don’t look 500 years old [but] could have died a few weeks ago,” Reinhard recalled in a 1999 interview.
The discovery of such a well-preserved mummy instantly created a surge of interest throughout the scientific community. Reinhard would return to the mountain top a month later with a full team and find more mummified children, this time a boy and a girl.
Reports from a Spanish soldier who witnessed the scientific examination of children in Peru’s sugarcane forest suggested that the boy and girl might have been buried as “companion sacrifices” for Mummiy Juana.
In summary, experts estimate that there may be hundreds of Inca children mummified in the peaks of the Andes still waiting to be discovered.
