Unique Projects: The Ampato Maiden

Her climb to nearly 20,700-foot summit of Mt. Ampato was the beginning of a journey to an afterlife with the gods more glorious than any she would have known in the deep Peruvian canyon she called home.

She was a teenager sacrificed to appease the mountain deities believed to control the weather that could bring famine or plenty to her Inca community. If a rockslide triggered by ash from a nearby volcano hadn’t exposed her to the elements, the details of her sacrifice 500 years ago might have remained unknown.

But her discovery created other problems. Without mechanical refrigeration to replace the freezing temperatures of her Andes burial site, her well preserved body would quickly decompose.

After a harrowing evening descent down the mountainside in her discoverer’s backpack, a 12-hour forced march atop a burro, and an overnight bus ride, the “Ampato Maiden” found a temporary home in an ordinary household freezer in Arequipa, Peru’s Universidad Catolica de Santa Maria.

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