In early 1999, archaeologist Johan Reinhard climbed over 6,700 meters to the top of one of South America’s highest volcanoes , Llullaillaco ( pronounced yu - yi - ya - ko ). The summit was covered in freezing ice and snow , and the wind often reached speeds of up to 113 Kilometers an hour. Reinhard was there to find something very special. He dug down through the earth and rocks beneath some ancient ruins and found a small chamber. Inside the chamber, he found what he was looking for : the frozen mummies of three Inca children.
The incas were a great south american civilisation . Until the sixteenth century, they ruled nearly 1 million square kilometres of western south america. Then they didn't keep written records. But reinhard hat spent his life studying them. Before he found the there children on llullaillaco, he found fifteen other inca mummies on other mountains. He believes the frozen mummies were human sacrifices to the inca gods.