Argentina museum displays Incan mummy Thu Sep 6, 6:44 PM

SALTA, Argentina - Museumgoers gasped Thursday at the well-preserved mummy of an Inca maiden which is on display for the first time, a serene gaze etched on her face hundreds of years ago when she froze to death in the Andes.

Hundreds of people packed a museum in Salta, Argentina, to see "la Doncella" — Spanish for "the Maiden" — a 15-year-old girl whose remains were found in 1999 in an icy pit on Llullaillaco volcano, along with a 6-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy.

Scientists believe the so-called Children of Llullaillaco were sacrificed more than 500 years ago in a ceremony marking the annual corn harvest. Dressed in fine clothes and given corn alcohol to put them to sleep, the victims were then left to die at an elevation of 22,080 feet.

Seated with her legs bent and her arms resting on her stomach, the Maiden's remains are still adorned with a gray shawl and bone and metal ornaments. Scientists say her face was daubed with red pigment and around her mouth they found flecks of coca leaf, which is chewed by highland Indians to blunt the effects of altitude.

Several Indian groups waged a losing campaign to prevent the remains from going on display, arguing that the mummies should be buried or at least kept from public view.

The exhibit is a "great mistake," said Miguel Suarez, a representative of the Calchaquies valley tribes in and around Salta.

Check out the full story with pics HERE

Great read thank you....

I didn't find it any more creepy than any other dead person on display.

Fascinating, actually. I want to see the other two children.

Amazing to look at the photograph of that mummy and to contemplate how very, very long ago it was that she lived.

Very interesting story.

That is amazing.

I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this. I mean, this is an awesome natural/ climactic oddity, but what exactly is the value from a human standpoint? No doubt many wouldn't care -- or at least would claim not to -- but would most of us want the remains of, say, our deceased daughters, sisters or cousins thrown in a glass display case for folk to gawk at in some museum? That doesn't sit well with me somehow.
[Edited 9/8/07 23:03pm]

Lammastide said:

I got the same with Egyptian mummies and that weird disected roadshow.

But hey, humans are human and crazy for this stuff. We have not evolved from the freak show, basically.

HamsterHuey said:

I certainly can't argue with that.

It's a little... undignified for her, isn't it?

At least with Doctor Gunther those people volunteer to be put on show after their death.

HamsterHuey said:

I agree and at the same time I go to museums and watch programs that show things like this and I want to look at this stuff so I have participated in the degradation of people like this woman they've got locked in that glass display case. I feel bad.

Lammastide said:

Justin1972UK said:

Good points.

Justin1972UK said:

Exactly.

Lammastide said:

I wouldn't mind if people could get a glimpse of my deceased daughter/sister/whatever and get a feeling for history and become educated.

Wow that was amazing.

Wow... I'd love to see that...

To me it's the ultimate form of disrespect. It's also why I want to be cremated.

I don't know how I feel about this either. I don't think this is being done out of disrespect. It's done to educate. I think it's the approach really. They should give her a proper burial after a certain time.

CortestheKiller said:

I understand the overall sentiment toward education. But what precisely are we learning from this? Morphologically, a 500-year-old girl is simply not ancient enough to bear any real differences from modern indigenous peoples. Culturally, we learn little or nothing from this that we didn't already know. If it's merely the sacred accessories and attire we want, let's take them off and display those. And if this is of cryogenic interest, she should be in a lab, not a public museum.

I think this satisfies some other unnamed interest we have that perhaps isn't serving us so well. We seem to have lost so much respect for the lives, deaths and integrity of others. We care soooo much more about a good spectacle.
[Edited 9/9/07 14:47pm]

retina said:

as soon as I saw the pic of the crowds having a good old look it made me feel uncomfortable and I thought "poor girl"

ZombieKitten said:

That's exactly how I felt.
At first when I read the story I was, like; "cool!"
Then when I clicked on the pics, it made me "uncomfortable".

PurpleJedi said:

exactly! I wanted to see how she looked, how different she might be from us today, but she WASN'T any different - she is just like us! and reading how she died and what she had to go through, and how she is sitting, so very HUMAN, was too sad

ZombieKitten said:

Yeah...I think that the difference between La Doncella and a typical egyptian mummy is that the latter is typically a dessicated shriveled-up corpse covered in bandages and barely "human". Meanwhile the girl is SO well-preserved that she could've died last WEEK.
Maybe THAT'S why it's so "creepy".

PurpleJedi said:

yes I think you are right. she was a 15 year old girl, and how many 100s of years ago she died, she still looks just like one.

ZombieKitten said:

If I went there, I would need to bring along a bouquet of flowers and lay it in front of the "display".

PurpleJedi said:

great idea!

ZombieKitten said:

I actually saw a similar display, 'Juanita', when I was in Arequipa, Peru. she's about 500 years old and lives in a freezer. She's a mummy, apparently sacrified by the Incas on a nearby mountain, Ampato, as an offering to the Sun God. They didn't do this very often and apparently it was something of a special priveledge - the lucky girls (!!) would first be given a large quantity of coca and then be knocked unconscious before being given to the mountain. In Juanita's case, there was heavy snowfall almost immediately afterwards, and she was preserved for half a millenium, until 1996 when a volcanic erruption caused the glacier to recede.
[Edited 9/19/07 6:01am]

JDInteractive said:

Well...at leats that's a more humane sacrifice than the Aztec ones to the rain god Tlaloc.
The children were chosen at birth(?) and led priviledged, pampered, regal lives until the time came to be sacrificed to Tlaloc...which meant getting flayed.

PurpleJedi said:

alive?