CSI: Cuzco – Incan ritual sacrifices
An international team of researchers has found that the ritual sacrifice of Inca children involved “fattening” them up before death. Using data from stable isotopes and DNA they have been able to establish a picture of the final few months of four mummified children found at some of the highest archaeological sites in the world.
To discover information about these final months the scientists measured deposits of various stable isotopes in hair samples from the children. Scalp hair samples were used for analysis as this tye of hair grows approximately 1 cm a month, the isotope deposits it contains reflecting the food that an individual has eaten during the months leading up to their death. Once deposited, these stable isotopes (which include carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen – see box for details) remain unchanged for thousands of years.
Two of the children were recovered from a shrine 25m from the 6,739m summit of Volcán Llullaillaco, the highest archaeological site in the world. They were a 15 year old girl called the “Llullaillaco Maiden” and a 7 year old boy called, you’ve guessed it, “Llullaillaco Boy”.
The shrine is one of over 100 Inca ritual sites all located between 5,200m and 6,700m. The peaks of the Andes were sacred to the Inca, and were often associated or even identified with the major deities such as the weather god Illapa. Sacrifices at these peaks reinforced the reverence for these sacred peaks and legitimized the growing Inca empire.
Dr Andrew Wilson, of the University of Bradford, and the lead author on this research commented: “By examining hair samples from these unfortunate children, a chilling story has started to emerge of how the children were ‘fattened up’ for sacrifice”.
Historical and archaeological accounts suggest that those chosen for sacrifice would first be taken to Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire, where celebrations would take place for their impending sacrifice. Following the celebrations the children would begin a pilgrimage to one of the burial sites in the Andes, which could last for several months.
Stable isotope analysis of hair samples from the Maiden show a changing diet during the 12 months before her death, suggesting an elevation in her status as she was prepared for sacrifice. Originally she had been fed a diet of vegetables, such as potato, suggesting that she came from a peasant background.
Her diet then changed to one containing plants such as maize and protein from charqui (dried llama meat), both regarded as “elite” foods in Inca societies, and which would have been deposited for the children at way stations along their pilgrimage route.
While the cause of death of these children is still unclear, it is known that they were given maize beer to “dull their senses” and coca leaves (a chewing quid was found in the mouth of the Maiden) to alleviate altitude sickness and inure them to their situation, hastening their deaths.
Previous research has shown that Llullaillaco Boy was particularly distressed when he died. His clothes were covered in vomit and diarrhoea, the vomit stained red by the hallucinogenic drug achiote. However, he appears to have been killed by suffocation, the textile wrapping which enveloped his body having been pulled so tight that it crushed his ribs and dislocated his pelvis.
“It looks to us as though the children were led up to the summit shrine in the culmination of a year-long rite, drugged and then left to succumb to exposure,” says co-author Dr Timothy Taylor, also of the University of Bradford. “Although some may wish to view these grim deaths within the context of indigenous belief systems, we should not forget that the Inca were imperialists too, and the treatment of such peasant children may have served to instill fear and facilitate social control over remote mountain areas.”
To this end, children chosen for sacrifice were often the sons and daughters of local community leaders or were offerings from within the community.
Sacrifices to social cohesion as much as to religion, these children were mere pawns in Inca society. Yet through the Bradford scientists’ work, they may yet prove to be some of its most important emissaries to the present, providing us with an insight into rituals which have previously remained shrouded in mystery.
