lickystickypickyshe:

The mummy of an ancient Inca girl sits literally frozen in sleep at a museum in Argentina.

The mummy, called La Doncella or The Maiden, is that of a teenage girl who died more than 500 years ago in a ritual sacrifice in the Andes Mountains. 

The girl and two other children were left on a mountaintop to succumb to the cold as offerings to the gods, according to the archaeologists who found the mummified remains in Argentina in 1999. 

Scientists say that her organs are intact and that it is as if she had died just a few weeks ago. From testing the samples of her hair they could determine the type of diet she was on before her death. This lead to the discovery that the Incan fattened their children before killing them. Months or even years before the sacrifice pilgrimage these children were given diets which were those of the elite, consisting of maize and animal proteins.

The Incan high priests took their victims to high mountaintops for sacrifice. As the journey was extremely long and arduous, especially so for the younger victims, coca leaves were fed to them to aid them in their breathing so as to allow them to reach the burial site alive. Upon reaching the burial site, the children were given an intoxicating drink to minimize pain, fear, and resistance, then killed them either by strangulation, a blow to their head or by leaving them to lose consciousness in the extreme cold and die of exposure. 

National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Johan Reinhard, who co-led the expedition, described the discovery at the time as “the best preserved of any mummy I’ve seen.” 
The High Country Archaeological Museum in Salta, Argentina, unveiled La Doncella, the oldest of the three victims, for its first public viewing.

The museum is displaying the mummy in a refrigerated, low-oxygen environment to reproduce the high-altitude conditions that allowed for its remarkable, natural preservation. 

The mummies of the other two children remain in storage for further study, museum officials said. 

6 years ago + 2,128 notes » source

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