What a preserved Inca mummy reveals about sacrifice

HostWe usually think of digging up the past as finding bits of broken pots or dusty old bones. But every now and then, what we find doesn't look like a ruin at all. It looks like someone who just fell asleep. High up in the Andes mountains, people found a young girl who looked like she could wake up at any moment. Why would people climb five miles into the sky just to leave a child there?

GuestIt's hard to wrap your head around it. This girl, often called the Maiden, was found sitting with her legs crossed at the very top of a volcano. Because it's so cold and dry up there, her body never rotted away. She stayed just as she was. Her skin, her hair, even the tiny hairs on her arms were still there five hundred years later. Because she stayed so whole, scientists could look at her hair to see exactly how her life changed about a year before the end.

HostWait, how does a piece of hair tell you about a meal from hundreds of years ago?

GuestWell, hair is like a diary of what you put in your body. As it grows, it traps bits of the food you eat. If you eat a lot of meat, that leaves a mark in the hair. If you eat mostly vegetables, that leaves a different mark. For most of her life, this girl ate a very simple diet—mostly potatoes and basic greens. But then, about a year before she was left on the mountain, everything shifted. Suddenly, she was eating the best food in the land. Lots of corn and dried meat. It was like she was being fattened up for a special reason.

HostThat feels a bit dark. People often say this was a great honor, but was she picked because her family was special, or was it more like a tax they had to pay?

GuestThat's where it gets tricky. The Inca empire was huge, and they used these gifts to the gods to tie the whole land together. Sometimes the children came from powerful families far away. Being chosen was seen as a way to link your family directly to the spirits. But it was also a way for the rulers to show their strength. They would take these children to the main city for big feasts, then march them hundreds of miles to these high peaks. It was a way of saying the King had power over every family and every mountain in the world.

HostBut hiking up a volcano is hard work even today with warm coats and boots. I can't imagine doing that with a child who doesn't want to go. Did they have to force her up the mountain?

GuestActually, the hair shows she was likely very calm, or at least very sleepy. In those last few months, they gave her huge amounts of coca leaves and lots of strong corn beer. By the time she reached the top, she would've been in a deep daze. She wasn't fighting or crying. She was likely passed out. They placed her in a small pit, tucked her in with beautiful blankets and dolls, and just let the cold do the rest. She didn't die from a hit or a knife. She just went to sleep and never woke up because the air was so freezing.

HostI don't know if just going to sleep makes it better. You say she was drugged, but that doesn't mean she wasn't afraid. Being high up in the clouds, freezing, with priests all around her... it feels more like a nightmare than a peaceful rest.

GuestIt's a nightmare to us, for sure. But we have to look at what they believed. To them, the mountain peaks weren't just rocks and ice. They were gods. They believed these children weren't really dying. They were becoming watchers. They stayed on the peak to look over their people and talk to the spirits that controlled the rain and the crops. To the Inca, she was becoming a kind of go-between who would live forever to keep the world in balance.

HostIf it was just about rain and crops, why go to all the trouble of the long walk? Could they not do that at a shrine closer to home?

GuestThe walk was a huge part of the power play. It showed how far the King’s reach went. By taking a child from a village far away, bringing them to the heart of the empire, and then placing them on the highest point in the land, the King was proving he owned everything. It was a way to keep the people in line. And the Maiden wasn't alone. There were two younger children found near her. A boy and a girl. They were all part of this same plan to show that the gods and the King were one and the same.

HostSo it was a show of force. But why her? Was there something about this specific girl that we can still see today?

GuestWell, she was about fifteen. Her hair was perfectly braided. She was wearing very fine clothes. One thing that really stuck with the people who found her was a lump of chewed leaves still tucked into her cheek. She was mid-chew when she drifted off. It's that tiny detail that makes it so real. You realize this wasn't a doll or a story. She was a person with a family and a life that was cut short so the rulers could feel safe.

GuestHundreds of these children might still be sitting in the ice on other peaks, waiting to tell their stories.

HostThe little girl on the volcano sits in a museum now, still wrapped in those same clothes.