Around 500 years ago, four young girls in South America were bashed in the head and sacrificed in a gruesome Inca ritual.
Researchers have conducted CT scans of their mummified remains, previously found high up on modern-day Peru’s Ampato and Sara Sara volcanoes. The team’s archaeological results, described in a study published in January in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, provide rare direct evidence of the grisly ritual.
The Inca were a powerful South American pre-Columbian civilization most commonly known for its construction of Machu Picchu. The empire lasted from the end of the 1200s to 1572, and many Peruvians today descend from these indigenous people.
The four children were sacrificed in an Inca ritual called capacocha, “one of the most significant ceremonial rituals of the Inca Empire,” Socha and her colleagues wrote in the study. It was associated with the imperial court, natural disasters, seasonal celebrations, and ethnic relocations. “The capacocha children served as representatives of their living communities before the deities,” they added.
Head injuries
While historical sources portray these rituals, few actual capacocha victims have come to light. As such, the remains of the four children—Ampato #1, Ampato #2, Ampato #4, and Sara Sara (each named after the volcano where they were found)—provide a rare opportunity for direct investigation, as well as the possibility of verifying these historical texts.
CT scans of Ampato #1, also known as the Lady of Ampato, unveiled injuries in her cranium and the areas of her pelvis and chest. The trauma to the head and pelvis would have been deadly. She died at around 14 years old, her body naturally mummified from the freezing conditions. Her remains were discovered along with little bags of corn, pottery fragments, and figurines.
Ampato #2 met her ritual end when she was around eight years old, also via a terrible head injury. Notably, the CT analyses suggested she had lasting health issues, challenging historical texts indicating the kinds of children that were sacrificed.
“Our findings show that chroniclers’ accounts should be treated with caution. Although historical sources describe the children as physically perfect and without flaws, modern scientific analyses reveal a very different reality,” Dagmara Socha, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Warsaw’s Centre for Andean Studies and co-author of the study, tells Gizmodo. “This may reflect the general living conditions within the Inca Empire, but it may also indicate that European chroniclers did not fully understand what the Incas themselves considered ‘ideal.’”
Intentional modification
Ampato #4, who died at around 10 years old from a (you guessed it) deadly head injury, also revealed something surprising: It appears that her body was intentionally modified after she died and may have even been buried twice. The team identified rocks and pieces of textiles in her abdominal cavity and some missing bones. That makes Ampato #4 the first deliberately mummified capacocha victim known to science.
But the chronicles did seem to get some things right. Ampato #4 was likely killed in one place before being moved to another, a custom that aligns with the Inca Empire’s resettlement of populations, which we know from historical sources. These relocated groups hauled along ritually significant items, including mummies of their ancestors, and Ampato #4 may have been one of these important pieces of baggage.
The study provides “the first direct evidence that the role of children sacrificed in the capacocha ritual did not end with their death. Until now, similar information was known mainly from colonial chronicles describing the mummies of deceased rulers and aristocrats. For example, Pedro Pizarro [a conquistador] wrote that living people visited [mummies] to seek approval for marriage,” Socha explained. Ampato #4’s mummification “shows that children sacrificed during capacocha may have played a similar role in the religious life of provincial communities.”
As for the Sara Sara mummy, she was around 14 years old and experienced cranial injuries comparable to Ampato #1, which means she was probably also a victim of a capacocha. Her remains were naturally mummified and also revealed similar health issues to Ampato #2.
The study ultimately sheds light on a practice whose knowledge has mostly reached us indirectly, highlighting the importance of direct archaeological evidence. Writers 500 years ago, just like those of us today, can get things wrong. It’s just harder for them to issue redactions.
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