in early 1999, archaeologist Johan Reinhard climbed over 6700 metres to the top of one of South America's highest volcanoes,Llullaillacotern The summit was covered in freezing ice and snow, and the wind often reached speeds of up to 113 kilometres 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.
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The inca were a great south America civilisation. Until the sixteenth century, they ruled nearly 1 million square kilometres of western South America. Then they disappeared. Not much is known about them because They didn't keep written records. But Reinhard has spent his life studying them. Before he found the three children on Llulliaillaco, he found fifteen other Inca mummies on other mountains.
He believes the frozen mummies were human sacrifices to the Inca gods.
The children on liullaillaco were very young when they died. Scientists think that the boy and two grils were between six and fifteen years old. They had been frozen on the summit of llullaillaco for over 500 years. Reinhard couldn't believe how well the mummies had been preserved. They looked like they had been buried only a short time before. The mummies were carefully remove and carried down the mountain. Since then Reinhard has had the chance to study them and has even found a living relative of one of the grils!