It happened on one cold day in September 1995. On Mount Ampato in Peru, Johan Reinhard, archaeologist and climber, spotted red feathers poking out of the snow. Carefully, Reinhard took the feathers and examined them in his gloved hands.
He knew: These were feathers used for Incan ceremonial statuettes. He put two stones in a plastic bag and dropped them down the steep mountainside. They landed next to a bundle of cloth. Miguel, Reinhard's assistant, was able to turn the bundle over. Little did they know what they were about to find!
It was a mummy, frozen in time. They took it downhill and got permission to take it to Maryland for research. Reinhard found out that she had been sacrificed to the gods. Being struck on the head, she became unconscious.
A volcano erupted, and she fell down a cliff. The laboratory scientists found that one of her eyes was deformed. This is just a theory of her death: No one knows for sure.
