Juanita: The Inca “Ice Maiden” In Peru
Gourami Watcher/Wikimedia CommonsMummy Juanita, also known as the Lady of Ampato, wrapped in the bundle where she was found in Peru.
In 1995, anthropologist Johan Reinhard and his climbing partner Miguel Zárate ascended Mount Ampato, a stratovolcano in southern Peru. Recent volcanic activity had warmed the snow near the top of the mountain, causing certain snow patches to move downward.
It just so happened that within one of these melting snow patches was the burial site of an Inca girl, roughly 12 to 15 years old. Her wrapped body had been astoundingly well-preserved by the thin, cold air near the summit.
There, Reinhard and Zárate found the young mummy now known as Juanita, or the Lady of Ampato. Reinhard later recalled that many doctors who saw the mummy couldn’t believe that she was over 500 years old. Many said she was preserved so well that she could have died weeks earlier.
She didn’t, though. She died sometime between 1450 and 1480 C.E., as part of capacocha, a sacrificial rite among the Inca that involved killing children.
Capacocha was done to appease the gods, with the hopes of preventing a natural disaster or ensuring a fruitful harvest. And Juanita’s placement atop Mount Ampato was likely part of the Inca’s mountain worship.
Using DNA from Juanita’s hair, scientists constructed a timeline of her final days. Markers in her hair indicated that up until a year before her death, she lived on the typical Inca diet of potatoes and vegetables.
Jaime Razuri/AFP via Getty ImagesJuanita was put on display in Japan in 1999.
However, closer to her death, her diet shifted and she was fed more luxurious foods such as animal protein and maize. She was also given large quantities of coca and alcohol — these last two were commonly given to victims of child sacrifice to put them in a heavily intoxicated state.
The Inca adjusted this drug mixture so that child sacrifices would fall asleep in the cold mountains. But tragically, Juanita did not die in her sleep.
Damage to her skull shows that she had died from a hemorrhage. Juanita was likely struck in the back of the head with a club, which caused her blood to swell and her brain to shift positions in her skull.
Still, Juanita’s mummified body remains one of the most curiously well-preserved in history, with her skin mostly intact. She can still be seen on display at the Museo Santuarios Andinos in Arequipa, Peru.