La Doncella Is an Incredible Mummy of an Inca Girl Sacrificed 500 Years Ago On Top of a Volcano in Argentina

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Juanita La Doncella or The Maiden is the name of a mummy of a teenage Inca girl who was sacrificed more than 500 years ago in the Andes Mountains.

The girl and two other children were left on a mountaintop to succumb to the cold as offerings to the gods. The cold, dry environment preserved La Doncella perfectly, making her look as if she just recently fell asleep.

la doncella, la doncella mummy, the maiden, the maiden mummy, mummy of girl sacrified on volcano
La Doncella is the mummy of a teenage girl found atop a volcano in Argentina.

The mummy is called La Doncella or The Maiden.

The teenage girl – approximately 11–15 years old – and two other children were left on Argentina’s Llullaillaco volcano (22,100 feet or 6,700 meters) to succomb to the cold as offerings to the gods sometimes between 1450 and 1480.

The excavation of the mummies at the mountain’s peak was the world’s highest archaeological dig.

The mummies of the other two children remain in storage for further study.

la doncella, la doncella mummy, the maiden, the maiden mummy, mummy of girl sacrified on volcano
Also known as The Maiden, the mummy was discovered on top of Argentinas Llullaillaco volcano

La Doncella was found dressed in a ceremonial tunic and adorned with a headpiece, tokens of her new status as a messenger to the heavens.

She may have been an aclla or “sun virgin,” chosen as a child to eventually become a sacrifice to the gods.

The girl had also drunk corn liquor, likely to put her to sleep and her mouth still held fragments of coca leaves, which the Inca chewed to lessen the effects of altitude sickness.

However no tattoos were found on her.

la doncella, la doncella mummy, the maiden, the maiden mummy, mummy of girl sacrified on volcano
The cold, dry environment preserved La Doncella perfectly, making her look as if she just recently fell asleep.

The cold, dry environment preserved La Doncella perfectly, making her look as if she just recently fell asleep.

The researchers wrapped the frozen bodies in layers of plastic, snow, and foam insulation to keep them cold and maintain their exquisite preservation.

The 500-year-old mummies were taken to the city of Salta for study.

la doncella, la doncella mummy, the maiden, the maiden mummy, mummy of girl sacrified on volcano
La Doncella or The Maiden is now exposed in a museum in Argentina.

La Doncella is the best-preserved mummy ever found, with internal organs intact, blood still present in the heart and lungs, and skin and facial features mostly unscathed.

la doncella, la doncella mummy, the maiden, the maiden mummy, mummy of girl sacrified on volcano
La Doncella, also know as “The Maiden” is one of the Children of Llullaillaco, three Inca kids who died on the volcano five centuries ago. La Doncella was around 15 when she died in her sleep after being drugged by coca leaves and chicha beer. She may have been an aclla or “sun virgin,” chosen as a child to eventually become a sacrifice to the gods. The cold, dry environment preserved La Doncella perfectly, making her look as if she just recently fell asleep. Picture by grooverpedro, Wikimedia Commons // CC BY 2.0

The Museum of High Altitude Archeology in Salta, Argentinia is displaying The Maiden in a refrigerated, low-oxygen environment to reproduce the high-altitude conditions that allowed for its remarkable, natural preservation.

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8 Comments

  1. Well that did age well…. 😂🤣😂🤣 you do know Amerika has one of the biggest sex trafficking business ever known right 🥴😮‍💨

  2. pink skins and jews have slaughtered hundreds of millions of people over the last few 1000 years. i ain’t concerned about a few ritual sacrifices as part of some ancient culture’s religious beliefs. i pin the tail on the honkey.

    • “a few ritual sacrifices as part of some ancient culture’s religious belief…”
      It’s not just a few, there are whole fields of child sacrifices in Peru, with literally hundreds of bodies, everywhere researchers dig. “Oh, the rains were late that year,” they will tell you, or for whatever goofy reason. A little further north, Aztecs would go to war and capture whole villages for sacrifices on their massive temples.

      All of Latin America has a history of ritual slaughter on an industrial scale. Incas, Mayans, Aztecs, they all had this weird, revolting practice. And it wasn’t as though they build modern, functioning, high-achieving societies that might partly compensate for this bloodthirsty custom, they were primitive bronze-age societies. They never even invented the wheel.

      “pink skins and jews” have gone to war like all other groups of humans, but have never been in the business of habitual, massive religious sacrifice of children.

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