 Mummy Juanita's body before unwrapping of her bundle. | |
| Location | Mount Ampato, Peru |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 116.114 .117.118 |
Momia Juanita (Spanish for "Mummy Juanita"), also known as the Lady of Ampato, is the well-preserved frozen body of a girl from the Inca Empire who was killed as a human sacrifice to the Inca gods sometime between 1440 and 1480, when she was approximately 12–15 years old.[1] She was discovered on the dormant stratovolcano Mount Ampato (part of the Andes cordillera in southern Peru) in 1995 by anthropologist Johan Reinhard and his Peruvian climbing partner, Miguel Zárate. Another of her nicknames, Ice Maiden, derives from the cold conditions and freezing temperatures that preserved her body on Mount Ampato.[citation needed]
Juanita has been on display in the Catholic University of Santa María's Museum of Andean Sanctuaries (Museo Santuarios Andinos) in Arequipa, Peru almost continuously since 1996, and was displayed on a tour in Japan in 1999.
In 1995, Time magazine chose her as one of the world's top ten discoveries.[2] Between May and June 1996, she was exhibited in the headquarters of the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C., in a specially acclimatized conservation display unit. In its June 1996 issue, National Geographic included an article dedicated to the discovery of Juanita.[3]
- ^ "Meeting A 500-Year-Old Peruvian Mummy". HuffPost. 2011-12-15. Retrieved May 17, 2022.
- ^ Gorman, Christine (1995-11-06). "Archaeology: RETURN OF THE ICE MAIDEN". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2020-05-20.
- ^ Reinhard, Johan: Peru’s Ice Maidens. National Geographic 189(6) (June): 62–81, 1996.