IN AN area of South America then ruled by the Inca civilisation,
she would have been singled out for her blemish–free looks and the
fact that she was a virgin. Thus selected at the age of 12 she
would have been taken away from her peasant parents and given a
remarkable year–long preparation for her particular role in life,
one that was deemed a great honour.
She would have been put under the guidance of priestesses and
dressed in the best clothes. Her hair would have been immaculately
braided and her modest diet replaced with the finest foods.
In the final few weeks of her life she would also have been plied
with alcohol and mind–altering drugs. Then, when she was surely in
a muddled, drunken state, she would have been taken to a sacred
mountaintop four miles high in freezing temperatures. There she
would have been left in a tomb to die at the extreme altitude. Such
was the fate of an Incan human sacrifice and this mummified
13–year–old was one such victim.
She is now more than 500 years old but, with her legs crossed, arms
folded and head on her shoulder, she still looks like the teenager
she was when she perished. Dubbed the Inca Ice Maiden she seems as
if she is simply asleep but her body has actually been frozen and
impeccably preserved for half a millennium. And although she looks
peaceful scientists now know the grim details of her death.
Her body and those of two younger children, believed to be around
four or five years old, were discovered in 1999, entombed near the
summit of the Llullaillaco volcano in Argentina, a site 6,000ft
higher than Mont Blanc. They have been called the best–preserved
mummies in the world.
All were already believed to have been sacrificed in a ceremony
known as capacocha. Such ceremonies were carried out by the Incas,
the civilisation that dominated South America until the arrival of
the Spanish in the 16th century.
However research just carried out on the children's 500–year–old
hair paints a far more detailed picture of the ceremony, one that
tallies with accounts of Spanish settlers who were shocked by such
practices. With the Inca Ice Maiden, who has the longest hair, the
findings were the most specific.
Says Dr Andrew Wilson of the University of Bradford who has been
leading the international research: "We have been able to quite
literally unlock history from her hair, giving voice to a very
personal account of what happened to her. This isn't a desiccated
mummy or a set of bones. This is a person, this is a child. I
suppose that's what makes it all the more chilling."
Chief among the new discoveries is how the child sacrifices were
drugged and intoxicated. The tests show they had consumed alcohol
and coca leaves (from which cocaine is extracted) in the months
before their deaths. This was perhaps to induce an altered state of
consciousness associated by the Incas with religious
experience.
With the Inca Maiden the time that she ingested these substances
could be accurately pinpointed.
HER coca intake increased sharply a year before her death, when it
is believed she was chosen for sacrifice and when her diet also
changed from a potato–based peasant one to one rich in meat and
maize.
Then in the last few weeks of her life her alcohol intake soared.
It was most likely used to sedate her and subdue any resistance she
may have put up. However in her last moments it could also have
helped her deal with the cold and enable her to peacefully drift
off into unconsciousness and then death.
"There is no sign of violence," says Dr Emma Brown, an
archaeologist at Bradford University. "What we suspect is that she
was probably in a stupor when put in the ground. We think a
combination of the altitude, the cold and the low oxygen meant that
she would have just slipped away."
Quite how sacrifices were viewed at the time is hard to determine.
The Incas believed agricultural fertility and success were
dependent on divine help and that was achieved by making human
sacrifices but it has also been suggested capacocha rituals were
intended to instil fear and control members of the rapidly
expanding empire.
One Spanish Jesuit priest, Bernabe Cobo, wrote about such
sacri–fices in 1653, detailing how parents forced to give up their
children had to pretend to feel honoured. "It was a major offence
to show any sadness. They were obliged to do it with gestures of
happiness and satisfaction, as if they were taking their children
to bestow on them a very important reward," he wrote.
Dr Brown says: "We know that some parents, particularly those who
were politically ambitious, volunteered. Others were quite pleased,
though, when their daughter was sexually active early because she
couldn't be taken."
Sacrifice victims had to be virginal and, says Brown: "From what we
know of the Spanish chronicles, particularly attractive or gifted
women were chosen. The Incas actually had someone who went out to
find these young women and take them from their families."
As the door of the Inca Maiden's tomb was closed off more than 500
years ago, we will never know whether she felt picked for a great
honour or condemned to a terrible fate. We can only hope that,
dosed up on drink and drugs, she was already unconscious as the
last light disappeared.