Inca offerings associated with the frozen mummies from Mount Llullaillaco

MARÍA CONSTANZA CERUTI

Tribus

Linden Museum Stuttgart

Lugar: Stuttgart; Año: 2015 p. 166 - 179

0082-6413

Five centuries ago, the highest Andean mountains were climbed by Inca priests for the ritual performance of sacrifices, and the subsequent burial of human victims and associ¬ated offering assemblages. Spanish chroniclers wrote about the ceremonies of capacocha during which young women and children?usually the sons and daughters of local rulers? were offered to the imperial deities together with a diverse assortment of symbolic items, such as gold and silver figurines, shell necklaces, high quality textiles, pottery, food, and firewood, for the good fortune of a recently crowned Inca emperor, and to ensure the fertility of the crops and llamas. In this paper I discuss the assemblages of offerings as¬sociated with the three frozen Inca mummies discovered during archaeological research conducted by Johan Reinhard and myself on the summit of Mount Llullaillaco, a volcano in northwestern Argentina. The archaeological items from the summit of Llullaillaco are one of the best preserved and best documented collections of Inca offerings ever found. The Llullaillaco mummies were buried about 1.7 meters deep in individual pits inside a funerary platform, approximately ten by six meters in length and width. They had been buried together with a total of more than one hundred sumptuary objects that included textiles, gold and silver statues, pottery, food, and feathered headdresses. According to the chroniclers? accounts these were conceived as supplies for the journey into the world of the ancestors as well as propitiatory offerings to be presented to the imperial deities and the local mountain spirits. This paper focuses on the social use and the symbolic meaning of such pieces of associated offerings, based on scientific analysis, as well as ethnohistorical and ethnographic references. By correlating the archaeological evidence with the historical sources, interpretations will be presented regarding the role of mortuary offering assem¬blages associated with Inca mummies on sacred Andean peaks.