The most creepy mummies in the world. Ice Maiden of the Incas Ice Maiden of the Incas

Argentine scientists found the mummy of a 13-year-old girl on the top of an extinct volcano, whom they called the “Ice Maiden.” The child was sacrificed by the inhabitants of the Inca state. The priests prepared the girl for the ritual for a long time, and then gave her an alcoholic drink and left her to die in the cold. Archaeologists, with the help of modern technology, were able to establish the “training schedule” of the victim and establish the social status of the dead girl.

The Mystery of the Ice Maiden Experts found the girl's body at the top of the volcano back in 1999. At the same peak, two more burials were found, in which were the body of a 5-year-old boy and the body of a 4-year-old girl, reports the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. All burials dated back to the Inca period.

Scientists have concluded that the Inca priests took children to the top of the volcano for sacrifice during the capacocha ritual. However, only the study of hair from the mummy of a teenage girl made it possible to guess who the “Ice Maiden” was, and how exactly the ancient inhabitants of South America prepared teenagers for death in the mountains.

Researchers looked for traces of residual products from the processing of coca and alcohol in the girl’s hair, which the Indians used to prepare victims for death.

Long preparation for death A comparative analysis of the three mummies revealed that the eldest girl received significantly more alcohol and coca than the younger Inca victims. The amount of these products in the Ice Maiden’s hair increased approximately a year before her death, and a month before her death it reached record levels.

“Apparently she consumed alcohol in significantly larger quantities than she was previously accustomed to. It was most likely used to calm the victim,” explained archaeologist and mummy researcher Andrew Wilson from the University of Bradford.

Scientists have come to the conclusion that the eldest of the Inca victims was specially prepared for sacrifice. She belonged to the "akkla" - a special group of girls who were entrusted with the technology of making beer from corn and special weaving methods. Such girls either became priestesses or were intended to be sacrificed to the gods.

The Incas took children for sacrifice from the tribes under their control. Unlike ordinary children, the girl from the Akkla group was given alcohol and coca leaves a year before her supposed death. Shortly before the sacrifice, the priests heavily watered and fed her “painkillers” on the way to the place of death. Thus, spectral analysis of hair allowed scientists to identify the internal hierarchy among the victims and understand that each time the ritual took place differently.

Capacocha ritual According to scientists, the death sacrifice on the top of the volcano was part of the complex ceremonial system of the Incas. In a solemn ceremony, children from subordinate tribes were taken from their parents and taken to a large city, such as Cusco, supposedly for “improvement.” There, certain rituals were performed on them and then they were sent to the tops of the Andes, where the sacrifice was performed.

The reason for sacrificing a child to the gods could be, for example, the death of a ruler, the birth of a son to a ruler, or victory in a war. In addition, the capacocha ritual was performed at a time when the Incan power was shaken by a natural disaster, such as drought, volcanic eruption or epidemic.

The ritual itself was described in the texts of the Spanish conquistadors who crushed the Inca Empire. According to archaeologists, today there are 20 known burials of children who were sacrificed during the capacocha ritual.

Inca Power The Inca state existed in South America from 1500 to 1752. Its center was the city of Cusco in modern Peru. The Incas knew the art of stone processing and were able to create a complex system of society with a regular army.

The ruler of the empire was the Great Inca. The empire was divided into four provinces, which were subordinate to the capital, Cusco. Units of soldiers were stationed in the provinces.

At the peak of its power, the empire occupied the space from northern Chile in the south to the borders of Ecuador in the north. The population was about 12 million people.

At the end of the 16th century, the Incas brutally exploited the tribes under their control. There was also no unity within the ruling class. The Spaniards took advantage of this and crushed the Indians with firearms. The last ruler of the Inca Empire, Tupac Amaru, was executed by the conquistadors in 1572.

This article will not talk about the disappeared civilization of the Incas, but about the most famous type of ancient sacrifice, when it was necessary to appease an angry volcanic deity - and for this, the Incas, like and, killed a child next to flowing lava flows with a club on the head.

Since the ice maiden of the Incas is, although the first, but not the only victim of the priests found, it can be assumed that such catastrophes occurred in those places quite often. In total, four murdered girls aged 10-12 years have been found so far. Next to all the mummies (by the way, nature itself contributed to mummification; the priests left only fresh corpses near the crater) there were other gifts to the gods: exquisite, colorfully painted figurines, headdresses with bright feathers and the same ritual things, of which only a few survived. The rest, apparently, rolled into the crater or were simply destroyed during the eruption.

For the same reason, evidence of the Inca culture, including the ice maiden (by the way, she is also commonly called the girl with Ampato - or even simply Juanita), turned out to be so scarce. The first mummy, accidentally discovered by Johan Reinhard in 1995 during a high-altitude expedition, thundered throughout the world, i.e. became a real sensation of the year. Scientists, partly for the upcoming opportunity to examine perfectly preserved internal organs, valued her so much that they considered it a great risk to transport the ice maiden, who had lain at an altitude of 5000 m for about half a thousand years. They were afraid that along the way the mummy would be stolen by local residents in order to sell it to collectors on the black market. Naturally, the price would have been exorbitant. You shouldn’t be surprised: this scenario for the development of events in third world countries is quite realistic. Archaeologists often lose their spoils during excavations, “thanks to” . However, this time everything went well, and the scientists finally got Juanita.

It is curious that if the Inca priests had lived to this day, they would probably have been horrified to learn exactly how the “asleep” girl from Ampato came to light again. This happened during the re-eruption of the same volcano - Nevado Sabancaya in Peru. For them, the volcano speaking again would give the impression of an unaccepted victim (as in the other three cases). But modern aborigines, on the contrary, considered the found body to be luck sent from above, because Shortly before climbing to the top of the mountain, Johan Reinhard and his partner Michel Zarata jokingly offered the mountain spirit beer made from corn.

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A teenage girl of 14-15 years old, who was sacrificed about 500 years ago, spent all the past centuries in the ice at the top of a six-thousander, which contributed to excellent preservation. Next to her are the frozen bodies of two more young victims: a seven-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl.

Instead of traditional DNA testing, the scientists examined proteins in the tissue and determined that the apparently healthy girl had a bacterial lung infection that resembled tuberculosis. For the first time, an infection has been detected in a mummy.

A team of researchers from the City University of New York, led by Angelique Corthals, studied samples of the mummy (the so-called Maiden, “Maiden”),

A unique mummy was discovered in 1999 on the slope of the Llullaillaco volcano, rising 6,739 meters above sea level on the border of Argentina and Chile.

Three mummies were found, which, unlike their embalmed Egyptian “colleagues,” were deep frozen. The body of a seven-year-old boy was also studied, but scientists have not yet decided to examine the remains of a six-year-old girl. It was probably hit by lightning at some point, which may affect the accuracy of the research results.

Most likely, three children were sacrificed, as evidenced by the artifacts located next to them: gold, silver, clothes, bowls of food and an extravagant headdress made of white feathers of unknown birds.

Historians suggest that children were chosen by the Incas for their beauty (in addition, children were considered purer creatures than adults) and sacrificed. The Incas did not sacrifice children very often.

In previous studies, it was established that before they were sacrificed, for a year the children were fed “elite” foods - maize and dried llama meat, although before that they ate exclusively peasant food, consisting of potatoes and vegetables.

The Evil Dead has always captured the human imagination. However, in reality, mummies do not carry anything terrible; on the contrary, they represent incredible archaeological value.

A mummy is the body of a deceased person specially treated with a chemical substance, in which the process of tissue decomposition is thus slowed down. Dried corpses can be stored for hundreds, even thousands of years. They contain the most interesting information about the life of the ancient world, customs, health and diet of our ancestors.

Screaming Mummy

The Guanajuato Mummies Museum in Mexico contains 111 bodies, which are naturally preserved mummified bodies of people, most of whom died in the second half of the 19th century. and the first half of the 20th century. and buried in the local cemetery "Pantheon of St. Paula".

The museum's exhibits were exhumed between 1865 and 1958, when a law was in force requiring relatives to pay a tax to have the bodies of their loved ones in the cemetery. If the tax was not paid on time, the relatives lost the right to the burial site, and the dead bodies were removed from the stone tombs. As it turned out, some of them were naturally mummified, and they were kept in a special building at the cemetery. Distorted facial expressions on some of the corpses indicate that they were buried alive.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. mummies began to attract tourists, and cemetery workers began to charge a fee for visiting the premises where the deceased were kept. The official date for the establishment of the Guanajuato Museum of Mummies is 1969, when the corpses were exhibited in glass shelves.

Boy from Greenland

Near the Greenlandic settlement of Qilakitsoq, located on the western coast of the largest island in the world, an entire family was discovered in 1972, naturally mummified due to low temperatures. Nine perfectly preserved bodies of the ancestors of the Eskimos who died on the territory of Greenland during the Middle Ages aroused keen interest of scientists, while one of them became famous throughout the world and beyond the scientific framework. Belonging to a one-year-old child (as anthropologists found, who suffered from Down syndrome), it, more like some kind of doll, makes an indelible impression on visitors to the National Museum of Greenland in Nuuk.

Two-year-old Rosalia Lombardo

The symbol of the Capuchin catacombs in Palermo, Italy, is the perfectly preserved body of Rosalia Lombardo, a two-year-old girl who died of pneumonia in 1920. Her father, unable to cope with grief, turned to the famous physician Alfredo Salafia with a request to preserve his daughter’s body. The baby’s face, amazingly preserved, is peaceful and so alive that it seems as if Rosalia only dozed off for a short time.

Juanita from the Peruvian Andes

Either still a girl, or already a girl (the age of the deceased at the time of death was from 11 to 15 years), named Juanita, gained worldwide fame in 1995, being included in the ranking of the best scientific discoveries according to Time magazine. This is the mummy of a young Peruvian woman, found in the Andes in almost perfect condition. Historians have told about the terrible end of the unfortunate woman: Juanita was sacrificed to the gods in the 15th century. Now her body is in the Museum of Andean Sanctuaries in the city of Arequipa, but the mummy “does not sit still.” It is especially often exhibited at many venues in Japan, which is distinguished by a strange love for mummified bodies.

Knight Christian Friedrich von Kahlbutz

This German knight lived from 1651 to 1702. After his death, his body turned into a mummy naturally and is now on display for everyone to see. According to legend, the knight Kalbutz was a great fan of taking advantage of the “right of the first night.” The loving Christian had 11 of his own children and about three dozen illegitimate offspring. In July 1690, he declared his “right of the first night” regarding the young bride of a shepherd from the town of Buckwitz, but the girl refused him, after which the knight killed her newly-made husband. Taken into custody, he swore before the judges that he was not guilty and promised that otherwise “after death his body will not crumble to dust.”

Since Kalbutz was an aristocrat, his word of honor was enough to get him acquitted and released. The knight died in 1702 at the age of 52 and was buried in the von Kalbutze family tomb. In 1783, the last representative of this dynasty died, and in 1794, restoration work was started in the local church, during which the crypt was opened in order to rebury all the dead of the von Kalbutz family in a regular cemetery. It turned out that all of them, except Christian Friedrich, had decayed. The latter turned into a mummy, which proved the fact that the loving knight was still an oathbreaker.

Pharaoh Ramses the Great

He died in 1213 BC. BC, and is one of the most famous Egyptian pharaohs. It is believed that he ruled Egypt during the campaign of Moses. A distinctive feature of the mummy is the presence of red hair, symbolizing the connection with the god Set, the patron of royal power.

In 1974, Egyptologists discovered that the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses II was rapidly deteriorating. It was decided to immediately fly it to France for examination and restoration, for which the mummies were issued a modern Egyptian passport, and in the “occupation” column they wrote “king (deceased).” At the Paris airport, the mummy was greeted with all the military honors due to the visit of the head of state.

Young Danish woman

A young Danish woman who died at the age of 18-19 was buried in 1300 BC. e. The deceased was tall, slender, with long blond hair styled in an intricate hairstyle, somewhat reminiscent of a 1960s babette. Judging by her expensive clothes and jewelry, it can be assumed that the deceased belonged to a family of the local elite.

The girl was buried in an oak coffin lined with herbs, so her body and clothes were surprisingly well preserved. The preservation would have been even better if the soil layer above the grave had not been damaged several years before this mummy was discovered.

Iceman Ötzi

Similaun Man, who was about 5,300 years old at the time of his discovery, making him the oldest European mummy, was nicknamed Ötzi by scientists. Discovered on September 19, 1991 by a couple of German tourists while walking in the Tyrolean Alps, who stumbled upon the remains of a Chalcolithic inhabitant, perfectly preserved thanks to natural ice mummification, it created a real sensation in the scientific world - nowhere in Europe have our bodies been found perfectly preserved to this day distant ancestors.

Now the tattooed mummy can be seen in the archaeological museum of Bolzano, Italy. Like many other mummies, Ötzi is shrouded in a curse: over the course of several years, under various circumstances, several people died, one way or another connected with the study of the Iceman.

Girl from Ide

The Girl from Ide is the name given to the well-preserved body of a teenage girl discovered in a peat bog near the village of Ide in the Netherlands. This mummy was found on May 12, 1897. The body was wrapped in a woolen cape. A woven wool noose was tied around the girl’s neck, indicating that she had been executed for some crime or had been sacrificed. There is a trace of a wound in the collarbone area. The skin was not affected by decomposition, which is typical for swamp bodies.

The results of radiocarbon dating carried out in 1992 showed that she died at about 16 years of age between 54 BC. e. and 128 AD e. The corpse's head was half shaved shortly before death. The preserved hair is long and has a reddish tint. It should be noted that the hair of all corpses that fall into a swampy environment acquires a reddish color as a result of denaturalization of the coloring pigment under the influence of acids found in the swampy soil.

A computed tomography scan determined that during her lifetime the girl had a curvature of the spine. Further research led to the conclusion that the cause of this was most likely damage to the vertebrae by bone tuberculosis.

Princess Ukok

The mummy of this woman, nicknamed the Altai Princess, was found by archaeologists in 1993 on the Ukok plateau and is one of the most significant discoveries in archeology of the late 20th century. Researchers believe that the burial was made in the V-III centuries. BC e. and belongs to the period of the Pazyryk culture of Altai.

During the excavations, archaeologists discovered that the deck in which the body of the buried woman was placed was filled with ice. That is why the woman’s mummy is well preserved. The coffin was sealed in a layer of ice. This aroused great interest among archaeologists, since very ancient things could be well preserved in such conditions. In the chamber they found 6 horses under saddles and with harnesses, as well as a wooden larch block nailed with bronze nails. The contents of the burial clearly indicated the nobility of the buried person.

The mummy lay on its side with its legs slightly pulled up. She had numerous tattoos on her arms. The deceased was dressed in a silk shirt, a woolen skirt, felt socks, a fur coat and a wig. She died at a young age (about 25 years old) and belonged to the elite of Pazyryk society.

Ice maiden from the Inca tribe

This is the famous mummy of a 14-15 year old girl who was sacrificed by the Incas more than 500 years ago. It was discovered in 1999 on the slope of the Nevado Sabancaya volcano. Next to the Ice Maiden, several more children's bodies were found, also mummified. Researchers suggest that the children were selected among others due to their beauty, after which they walked many hundreds of kilometers across the country, were specially prepared and sacrificed to the gods at the top of the volcano.

10.07.2016 22:22

A mummy is the body of a dead creature specially treated with a chemical substance, in which the process of tissue decomposition is slowed down. Mummies are stored for hundreds and even thousands of years, becoming a “window” into the ancient world. On the one hand, mummies look creepy, some people get goosebumps just looking at these wrinkled bodies, but on the other hand, they are of incredible historical value, containing interesting information about the life of the ancient world, customs, health and diet of our ancestors .

11. Seti I - Egyptian pharaoh in the tomb
The superbly preserved mummy of Seti I and the remains of the original wooden coffin were discovered in the Deir el-Bahri cache in 1881. Seti I ruled Egypt from 1290 to 1279. BC e. The mummy of this pharaoh was buried in a specially prepared tomb. Seti is a minor character in the science fiction films The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, where he is depicted as a pharaoh who falls victim to a plot by his high priest, Imhotep.

12. Mummy of Princess Ukok
The mummy of this woman, nicknamed the “Altai Princess,” was found by archaeologists in 1993 on the Ukok plateau and is one of the most significant discoveries in archeology of the late 20th century. Researchers believe that the burial was made in the 5th-3rd centuries BC and dates back to the period of the Pazyryk culture of Altai. During the excavations, archaeologists discovered that the deck in which the body of the buried woman was placed was filled with ice. That is why the woman’s mummy is well preserved. The burial was walled up in a layer of ice. This aroused great interest among archaeologists, since very ancient things could be well preserved in such conditions. In the chamber they found six horses with saddles and harnesses, as well as a wooden larch block nailed with bronze nails. The contents of the burial clearly indicated the nobility of the buried person. The mummy lay on its side with its legs slightly pulled up. She had numerous tattoos on her arms. The mummies were wearing a silk shirt, a woolen skirt, felt socks, a fur coat and a wig. All these clothes were made of very high quality and indicate the high status of the buried. She died at a young age (about 25 years old) and belonged to the elite of Pazyryk society.

13. Ice maiden from the Inca tribe
This is the famous mummy of a 14-15 year old girl who was sacrificed by the Incas more than 500 years ago. It was discovered in 1999 on the slope of the Nevado Sabancaya volcano. Next to this mummy, several more children's bodies were discovered, also mummified. Researchers suggest that these children were chosen among others due to their beauty, after which they walked many hundreds of kilometers across the country, were specially prepared and sacrificed to the gods at the top of the volcano.