La Doncella, Update

An update on the Incan mummy known as La Doncella. The almost eerily preserved body of the 15-year old girl who was sacrificed by the Incas has recently gone on display in Argentine. I posted about her twice, here and here. I still get search engine hits from both posts. A few more facts have come out from researchers in the Times of London that warranted an update. It seems that the three victims of this particular human sacrifice ritual of the Incas were purposely "fattened up" for their fate. Starting at least a year before the actual sacrifice.

Grim evidence of how the Incas “fattened up” children before sacrificing them to their gods has emerged from a new analysis of hair from two 500-year-old mummies preserved near the summit of a volcano.

The remains of the 15-year-old girl known as the “Llullaillaco Maiden” and the seven-year-old “Llullaillaco Boy” revealed that their diets changed markedly in the 12 months up to their deaths, shedding new light on the rituals of the ancient Andean civilisation.

The research, by a British-led team, suggests that the children were fed a ceremonial diet before being marched to a shrine 82ft (25 metres) from the top of the 22,110ft (6,739 metres) volcano Llullaillaco, where they were suffocated or left to die from exposure.

Before being chosen as sacrificial victims, the boy and girl had followed a typical peasant diet. This raises the possibility that they were chosen from among the Incas’ conquered subjects and killed not only to pacify the mountain gods, but also to instil terror and respect for an imperial power. “It looks to us as though the children were led up to the summit shrine in the culmination of a year-long rite, drugged and then left to succumb to exposure,” said Timothy Taylor of the University of Bradford, one of the lead researchers.

“Although some may wish to view these grim deaths within the context of indigenous belief systems, we should not forget that the Inca were imperialists too and the treatment of such peasant children may have served to instil fear and facilitate social control over remote mountain areas.”

The two mummified bodies, along with a third belonging to a six-year-old girl, were discovered in 1999 on Llullaillaco, in northwestern Argentina, near the Chilean border.

As I mentioned before, I have a 15-year old daughter. Scientifically, it may be fascinating. From a human standpoint, it is horrible.