Mummy Juanita

File:Juanitas Frozen Hand.jpg

Juanita's 500-year-old, well-preserved hand.

Momia Juanita (Spanish for "Mummy Juanita"), better known in English as the "Ice Maiden," is the frozen body of an Inca girl. She lived to be approximately 12-14 years old, and who died sometime between 1440 and 1450.

She was discovered in southern Peru in 1995 by anthropologist Johan Reinhard and his Peruvian climbing partner Miguel Zarate. Also known as the Lady of Ampato and the Frozen Lady, Juanita was taken on tour in the United States in 1996 and in Japan in 1999 before she was returned to Peru.

"Juanita" was remarkably well-preserved after 500 years, making her one of the more important recent finds; indeed, this discovery was chosen by Time magazine, in 1995, as one of the world's top ten discoveries.

According to Reinhard, when found in Mount Ampato (part of the Andes cordillera), "juanita" weighed approximately 80 pounds. Reinhard and his partner then realized that the heavy body mass was due to freezing of the flesh. This preservation allowed biological tests to be run on the lung, liver, and muscle tissue. These offered new insights into Inca health and nutrition during the reign of the Sapa Inca Pachacuti.

Discovery of the Ice Maiden, Juanita

Johan Reinhard had made various ascents in several mountain ranges, such as the Himalayas (in Nepal) and the Peruvian Andes. As an archaeologist, he had studied Machu Picchu, Chavín, and the Nazca Lines. He became very familiar with the Peruvian heights and the region's native inhabitants. He and his partner, Miguel Zárate, a guide from Arequipa, regularly climbed the mountains that were legendarily the homes of the Apus, mountain spirits that Peruvians have feared and worshipped since the time of the Inca.

In 1995, during an ascent of Mt. Ampato, Reinhard and Zarate found, inside the summit crater, a bundle that had fallen from an Inca site owing to melting caused by volcanic ash from the nearby volcano of Sabancaya. To their astonishment, the bundle turned out to contain a remarkably well-preserved body of a young girl. In addition, they found—strewn about the mountain slope down which the body had fallen— many items that had been left as offerings to the Inca gods; these included statues and food items. A couple of days later, the body and the objects were taken to Arequipa. The body was initially kept in a special refrigerator.

The body caused a sensation in the scientific world due to its well-preserved condition. Between May and June of 1996, it was exhibited in the headquarters of 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, and in 2005, Johan Reinhard published a detailed account in his book The Ice Maiden: Inca Mummies, Mountain Gods, and Sacred Sites in the Andes (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society).

See also

• Ötzi the Iceman