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.

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