500 year old Frozen Inca girl

 

(Above: The 15-year-old “Llullaillaco Maiden” was sacrificed along with two other children on top of Mt. Llullaillco, in northern Argentina, at 22,000 feet)
In Argentina, A Museum Unveils A Long-Frozen Maiden
September 11, 2007
NYT
SALTA, Argentina — The maiden, the boy, the girl of lightning: they were three Inca children, entombed on a bleak and frigid mountaintop 500 years ago as a religious sacrifice…
Unearthed in 1999 from the 22,000-foot summit of Mount Llullaillaco, a volcano 300 miles west of here near the Chilean border, their frozen bodies were among the best preserved mummies ever found, with internal organs intact, blood still present in the heart and lungs, and skin and facial features mostly unscathed. No special effort had been made to preserve them. The cold and the dry, thin air did all the work. They froze to death as they slept, and 500 years later still looked like sleeping children, not mummies.

In the eight years since their discovery, the mummies, known here simply as Los Niños or “the children,” have been photographed, X-rayed, CT scanned and biopsied for DNA. The cloth, pottery and figurines buried with them have been meticulously thawed and preserved. But the bodies themselves were kept in freezers and never shown to the public — until last week, when La Doncella, the maiden, a 15-year-old girl, was exhibited for the first time, at the Museum of High Altitude Archaeology, which was created in Salta expressly to display them.
The new and the old are at home in Salta. The museum faces a historic plaza where a mirrored bank reflects a century-old basilica with a sign warning churchgoers not to use the holy water for witchcraft. Now a city of 500,000 and the provincial capital, Salta was part of the Inca empire until the 1500s, when it was invaded by the Spanish conquistadors.
Although the mummies captured headlines when they were found, officials here decided to open the exhibit quietly, without any of the fanfare or celebration that might have been expected.
“These are dead people, Indian people,” said Gabriel E. Miremont, 39, the museum’s designer and director. “It’s not a situation for a party.”
The two other mummies have not yet been shown, but will be put on display within the next six months or so.
The children were sacrificed as part of a religious ritual, known as capacocha. They walked hundreds of miles to and from ceremonies in Cuzco and were then taken to the summit of Llullaillaco (yoo-yeye-YAH-co), given chicha (maize beer), and, once they were asleep, placed in underground niches, where they froze to death. Only beautiful, healthy, physically perfect children were sacrificed, and it was an honor to be chosen. According to Inca beliefs, the children did not die, but joined their ancestors and watched over their villages from the mountaintops like angels.
Discussing why it took eight years to prepare the exhibit, Dr. Miremont smiled and said, “This is South America,” but then went on to explain that there was little precedent for dealing with mummies as well preserved as these, and that it took an enormous amount of research to figure out how to show them yet still make sure they did not deteriorate.
The solution turned out to be a case within a case — an acrylic cylinder inside a box made of triple-paned glass. A computerized climate control system replicates mountaintop conditions inside the case — low oxygen, humidity and pressure, and a temperature of 0 degrees Fahrenheit. In part because Salta is in an earthquake zone, the museum has three backup generators and freezers, in case of power failures or equipment breakdowns, and the provincial governor’s airplane will fly the mummies out in an emergency, Dr. Miremont said.
Asked where they would be taken, he replied, “Anywhere we can plug them in.”
The room holding La Doncella is dimly lighted, and the case itself is dark; visitors must turn on a light to see her.
“This was important for us,” Dr. Miremont said. “If you don’t want to see a dead body, don’t press the button. It’s your decision. You can still see the other parts of the exhibit.”
He designed the lighting partly in hope of avoiding further offense to people who find it disturbing that the children, part of a religious ritual, were taken from the mountaintop shrine.
Whatever the intention, the effect is stunning. Late in August, before the exhibit opened, Dr. Miremont showed visitors La Doncella. At a touch of the button, she seemed to materialize from the darkness, sitting cross-legged in her brown dress and striped sandals, bits of coca leaf still clinging to her upper lip, her long hair woven into many fine braids, a crease in one cheek where it leaned against her shawl as she slept.

 

http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?p=194

 

 

All sorts of things considered today, based on revised enlightenment reactionary principals of moral ethics and conduct, as determined by 17th-21st ce. humanists, secularists, atheists and agnostics, are easier to determine viz hindsight then when they occurred.

 

500 years ago babies were being aborted....still are.

 

 

 

 

Context it's always about context.

 

More to the point/op....this was amazing preservation work and those involved should be rightly proud of their efforts and the sensitivity displayed.

 

 

 

Nope.

 

Not in the contextual era in which your dealing here. 500 years ago the position of the superior moral authority was not an individual woman but the church. Be it in Spain, England, France or elsewhere in Christendom.

 

 

Nor did women enjoy the individual rights of ownership pf their body as is seen today necessarily.. tho that was changing..it would not be complete for another 300 years. Iow. It was a sin to abort; as it was a sin to participate in human sacrificial offerings as a Christian...the sacrament of communion established by the church had replaced it.

 

Otoh, the contextual era of the Incas religion ie. non-christian supported the practice described and children were used to propitiate the gods. This was changed with the Spaniards arrived there as you note but not the prescription on abortion in Europe. if the Incas aborted then it was acceptable in their context....but I have no knowledge of their practicing it. So this is speculation...and as ya know I'm not fond of that.

 

And while I grant the  Inca child had a mind of it's own that is a non justifier if they were raised to believe and they were and did; that they were in concert with the belief mechanisms of their time, culture and experience.

 

Infants in the womb also have a mind...not necessarily developed...but the murder then and today, imo, was a response mechanism to stresses faced by the mother in the primacy, others as well.....no matter the stress. Imo, a response that was still controllable viz other options.  But that's my belief mecahanism from another era. And I recognize much of this is culturally based on position status, income, employment opportunity, political-citizenship status and theological, if any, and era.... etc. But as I am attempting to avoid conflicts in era context I really must remember my own admonitions. So I'll let it go there.

 

We must agree to disagree and yet agree.....and I know that doesn't sound logical but when it comes to abortion my logic fails on occasion.