Johan Reinhard: The Ice Maiden. Inca Mummies, Mountain Gods, and Sacred Sites in the Andes

Half a millennium ago, a party of Inca priests and a young virgin climbed more than 20,000 feet to the summit of the Andean peak of Ampato. At the climax of their ceremony, the girl was sacrificed and buried along with sacred offerings of textiles, fond, and figurines of silver and gold; there the Inca Ice Maiden would remain undisturbed for 500 years, until Johan Reinhard found her in 1995. It was a stunning discovery that made headlines all over the world — but it was just the beginning of this fascinating tale of adventure, high-altitude archaeology, and groundbreaking scientific accomplishment.
In his first-hand account, Reinhard, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, chronicles more than two decades of challenging research that led him on over 200 climbs of some of the world's highest mountains, and culminated in two seasons of unprecedented finds — first the ice maiden on Ampato, and four years later on Llullillaco, where three Inca children lay frozen in a state of near-perfect preservation. Dead for centuries yet still alive in their startling humanity, they are mute yet eloquent wit¬nesses to ancient Inca civilization and custom, yield-ing everything from statuary and ceremonial clothing to DNA samples — each a new piece in the cultural puzzle that is Reinhard's life's work.