[1/5]The face, reconstructed using three-dimensional technology, of a girl who was sacrificed over 500 years ago and whose frozen body was discovered in 1995, is pictured at the Catholic University of Santa Maria in Arequipa, Peru, Oct. 24, 2023. Portal/ Ros Postigo acquires license rights
AREQUIPA, Peru, Oct 24 (Portal) – The reconstructed head and torso of a young girl, likely sacrificed to appease the Inca gods, was unveiled in Peru on Tuesday. Three-dimensional scans of her mummy helped create the lifelike replica more than 500 years after her death.
Scientists from Peru and Poland used digital scans of her mostly well-preserved mummy, which was found in 1995 in an Inca-era burial bundle near the summit of the Ampato volcano outside Arequipa in southern Peru.
The Incas ruled over a vast swath of western South America along the Pacific coast and the Andean highlands, and saw their rich and powerful empire fall to Spanish invaders in 1532.
But some time before that, the girl was sacrificed by a blow to the head, possibly as part of a ritual ceremony hoping for divine rescue in natural disasters, scientists said.
She was called the “Lady of Ampato” or simply “Juanita” and was said to have been either 14 or 15 years old.
The reconstruction, now on display at the Catholic University of Santa Maria in Arequipa, shows her mouth slightly open and her dark, piercing eyes gazing into the distance. It includes colorful clothing, headdresses and adornments also based on the mummy’s scans.
“It’s done in a great way,” said archaeologist Johan Reinhard, who was part of the team that found the mummy, adding that the reconstruction was particularly impressive because her face had been exposed to the elements and was therefore not well preserved be .
“Seeing her face as it was when she was alive is a completely different experience because it seems so real,” he said.
Reporting by Pocho Torres and Carlos Valdez; Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan
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