X-Message-Number: 11522 Date: Tue, 06 Apr 1999 19:05:22 -0700 From: Tony Benjamin Csoka <> Subject: Fwd: More on the mummies > > > After climbing to the 22,000-foot summit of a volcano in northern Argentina, > archeologists have found three frozen Inca mummies, 500-year-old remains of a > ritual sacrifice, which are so well preserved that blood is still present in the heart and > lungs. > > The bodies of two girls and a boy were buried beneath five feet of rock and dirt, amid a > cache of statuettes, pottery and ornate textiles associated with human sacrifices in the Inca > religion. They had apparently been naturally frozen by the weather since immediately after > death. Two of the mummies were in such excellent condition, physicians said, that all their > internal organs were intact. It was as if death had been only recent. > > Archeologists and other scholars said the findings should yield important insights into the > religion and the worship of sacred mountains in the Inca empire, which spanned most of the > Andes and the western coast of South America at the time of the Spanish conquest in the > early 16th century. They said the mummies and the artifacts were even more impressive than > the discovery of the Peruvian "Ice Maiden," a frozen body of an Inca sacrifice found in > 1995. > > The new discovery, made last month on Mount Llullaillaco, at Argentina's border with > Chile, was announced yesterday by Dr. Johan Reinhard, an American archeologist and > mountaineer who led an American-Argentine-Peruvian expedition supported by the National > Geographic Society. He described the mummies and other finds at a news conference in > Salta, Argentina, and in a telephone interview. > > "The preservation of the mummies is just fantastic," Dr. Reinhard said. "It's eerie looking at > the arms. You can still see the light hair on their arms." > > The archeologist said they were the best preserved of any mummies he had ever seen, and in > recent years he has ascended to the peaks of mountains in Argentina, Chile and Peru and > come down with 18 mummies, all apparent sacrifices to the sacred mountains. Physicians so > far could not establish how the three individuals, probably between 8 and 15 years old, had > met their death. > > As far as the explorers could determine, the mummies and other offerings to the Inca gods > appeared to have been undisturbed through the centuries. Gold, silver and shell statues, from > two to seven inches tall, were arranged on the burial platform just as they probably were for > the ritual sacrifices. Half of the statues were clothed. Other artifacts included pottery, some > of it still containing food, and bundles of alpaca textiles that appeared to establish the > sacrifice victims as elite members of the society. > > "The undamaged female has a beautiful yellow, geometrically designed cover laid over her > outer mantle," Dr. Reinhard said. She also wore a feathered headdress. > > Below the summit, at about the 17,000-foot level, the expedition found the stone ruins and > ceramics of a camp where participants in sacred rituals presumably stayed before the final > ascent to the peak. > > "From a scientific point of view," said Dr. Craig Morris, an Andean anthropologist at the > American Museum of Natural History in New York City, "the artifacts and the base camp are > at least as important as the mummies in determining the meaning of these rituals." > > Dr. Richard Burger, an archeologist of early Andean civilizations at Yale University, said the > preservation of the bodies gave medical scientists an opportunity to conduct revealing tests of > the diet, health and genetics of the victims. The blood should lead to DNA studies of the > genetic composition of these people. > > These and other recent discoveries, Dr. Burger said, are important as established cases of > capac cocha, or human offerings, by the Inca because there was previously a suspicion that > the Spanish conquerors had exaggerated their accounts of such practices, as well as > cannibalism and odd sexual mores, to justify their conquests. > > Dr. Reinhard had explored Mount Llullaillaco (pronounced yoo-yie-YAK-oh) several times > before, mapping ruins and trying the trail to the top. Last month the expedition battled > driving snow and winds near the summit. "We had several days of finding nothing," he said. > "I was about to give up." > > But on March 16 the team found the first burial. One of the workers had to be lowered into a > hole by his ankles so that he could pull the mummy out. Then they found the two others. > One of the mummies, a female, had been damaged on the left side by a lightning strike, but > the two others were undamaged. > > Having called ahead by cellular phones, the archeologists had Argentine military vehicles > waiting for them when they descended the mountain with their cargo of mummies wrapped > in plastic, snow and foam insulation. The bodies were still frozen when they reached Salta, a > city about 300 miles away. Some members of the team were from the Center for the > Conservation of High Altitude Cultural Patrimony in Salta. Constanza Ceruti, an Argentine > archeologist, was a co-leader of the expedition. > > The mummies are to remain refrigerated in Salta for further tests. Dr. Reinhard said he had > more mountains to climb in search of Inca sacrifices. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=11522