According to CNN, she goes by many names: Juanita, the Ice Maiden of the Andes, and the Lady of Ampato. She was a young teen between 13 and 15 when — perhaps willingly — she trekked up Mount Ampato with Incan priests sometime between A.D. 1440 and 1450, per the AP. She was dressed in royal garments, not necessarily because of her station in Incan society, but because she was going to be sacrificed to the gods, according to “The Ice Maiden: Inca Mummies, Mountain Gods, and Sacred Sites in the Andes.” It was likely the teen had chewed coca leaves or drank the powerful hallucinogen ayahuasca or perhaps drank some sort of alcoholic concoction — researchers found traces of vomit on her clothing — to calm her before the priests killed her by smashing in her skull using a ceremonial club (per the BBC and The Baltimore Sun).
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They left her there, surrounded by gold, silver, and shell figurines, pottery, food, and other items, according to Expedition Magazine. “In Inca beliefs, such a sacrifice brought honor on the parents and an afterlife of bliss for the victim,” Reinhard recounted in the article. “The child would become deified and worshiped for generations as the villagers’ intermediary with the gods.”
