ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 1996 TAG: 9605220042
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: PAUL RECER ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE 500-YEAR-OLD BODY found on 20,700-foot Mount Ampato in Peru is that of a teen-ager, a sacrifice intended to appease angry gods.
The teen-ager, wearing the finest clothes, went with Inca priests to a mountaintop where her skull was crushed in a ritual to appease the gods. Discovered still frozen in an icy pit after 500 years, she is now the best preserved pre-Columbian body ever found.
Called Juanita or the Ampato Maiden by Peruvian scientists, the body of the young girl was found in September near the top of 20,700-foot Mount Ampato in Peru.
Kept in freezers since it was brought down from the mountain by American archaeologist Johan Reinhard, the remains went on display Tuesday at the National Geographic Society building in Washington.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore earlier put the body through a CT scan examination and concluded that the girl died of a powerful blow to the head.
``The cause of death was intercranial bleeding,'' said Dr. Elliot Fishman, head of the Hopkins team that examined the body.
He said the CT scan, a type of computer-driven X-ray system, showed the girl's skull was cracked just above her right eye. The examination showed that the brain was pushed to one side, probably as the result of bleeding after the blow.
Fishman said the body was that of a well-nourished, healthy 12- to 14-year-old of something over 4 feet in height.
``She had the best set of teeth that I've seen in many years,'' said Fishman.
The girl probably never regained consciousness after being struck, he said, and would have died within hours.
Fishman said there was a suggestion of osteoporosis in several bones of the back, but that this finding is not conclusive, nor easily explained.
Tissue and hair samples have been taken from the body and scientists plan to search for DNA, the genetic pattern.
At a news conference, Reinhard said his discovery of the body was pure chance.
``I had no expectation of finding anything at all,'' he said. ``I went up there mostly for the view.''
Reinhard was in Peru doing research and decided to climb Mount Ampato to get a view of an ash cloud spewing from Sabancaya, a nearby volcano. When he arrived with his companions at the top of Ampato, he said, they found that volcanic ash had caused the ice at the peak to melt and a ridge at the peak had broken away.
The body, apparently fallen from the peak, was found down a slope, still encased in ice. Reinhard carried the body down the mountain and caught a nighttime bus to Arequipa, where the body was placed in a freezer at Catholic University.
``It still had ice on the cloth, so it never thawed,'' he said. ``The fact that it is a frozen body is what makes it so unique.''
Since then, special freezer cabinets have been designed to protect the body while it is studied and while it is on display at the National Geographic.
Reinhard returned to Ampato and found two more bodies buried in sacrificial pits. The pits, however, had been struck by lightning, he said, and the bodies were not well preserved. Metal buried with the bodies bore evidence of melting from the heat of the lightning bolts, he said.
Four other circular pits were also found, but they contained only artifacts.
``We have found three human sacrifices on that one mountain,'' said Reinhard. ``This was obviously one of the most important sites to the whole Inca empire.''
Jose Antonio Chavez, a Peruvian archaeologist, said it is now believed that Ampato was considered a sacred mountain by the Incas. It was used as a place of sacrifice and burial of young children, a practice that the Incas thought would persuade the gods to prevent bad things from happening.
Chavez said through an interpreter that the Ampato Maiden probably fasted and was then given narcotics. She was dressed in fine clothing, including a silver pin, and taken to the mountaintop where she was made to kneel. A priest then struck her from behind with a club.
She was buried in a sitting position, in a shallow pit, along with jewelry, pots and other artifacts.
Reinhard said the Ampato Maiden and other sacrificial victims will help scientists learn more about the Incas' religion and should help researchers unravel mysteries about other Incan sites in the Andes Mountains.
The Inca empire lasted only 90 years, but it once stretched from Colombia to central Chile. The empire ended with the Spanish conquest in 1532.
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