Ice Maiden: Inca Mummies, Mountain Gods, and Sacred Sites in the Andes

Johann Reinhard's moment by moment account of discovering the Incan Ice Maiden covered all the subjects I wanted with the topic of this importance. He reports not only the expected archeology, historical/cultural context, and actual discoveries, but also the logistics, preservation science and the usual professional infighting that accompanies such media intense stories. Reinhard exposes much of his thoughts and feelings toward the growing number of players as everyone wants to be part of the story. Would-be explorers would do well to read and note the worries and difficulties modern discoveries take on.

This is a tale of finding things a long ways up a frozen mountain. It begins with a volcanic eruption that causes a collapse of the ground around a burial site. Now exposed is the small frozen mummy of an Inca girl, presumably (but not certainly) a deliberate sacrifice. The discovery of this mummy, now called the Ice Maiden began a series of architectural discoveries in the region that have greatly expanded our knowledge of the Incas and their way of life. This book takes the form of a personal travelogue written by one of the National Geographic's Explorers-in-Residence. It is a blend of architecture, mountaineering, and exploration in an area still not frequented by many. It is at once a personal story and a report on a momentous finding. The photographs in the center of the book are so stunning, that my one regret is that this section isn't twice or three times as long as it is.

"The Ice Maiden" is a riveting personal account of three decades of arduous high altitude archeological exploration by the author and his teams of Peruvian and Argentine archeologists, scientists, students and campesinos that culminated in their discovery, excavation and recovery of over a dozen Inca sacrificial mummies from Andean mountaintops (I lost count.) Even more hair-raising than the story of the initial discovery of the "Juanita" on Ampato near Arequipa, Peru are Reinhard's descriptions of later expeditions to the 22,000-foot summit of Llullaillaco in north-western Argentina, where his team found several Inca mummies in almost perfect condition. Though the progress of each expedition, from planning, ascent, through discovery, excavation to recovery descent are told in a simple, chronological style, these stories grab your full attention, similar to Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air," because the expeditions were so difficult, dangerous, and obscure. The teams faced lightening, blizzards, and drought many times, but also acidic drinking water near the top of the volcano Misti, near Cuzco, transport breakdowns, from army trucks to burros, and quarrels among local police, military, civilian authority and university staff about where the mummies should be kept, to say nothing of running out of food and funds. The facts of this odyssey are far stranger than fiction. Having tried amateur mountaineering while I lived in Bolivia in the early nineties, I know how hard it is to try to walk, eat, sleep and think at 18,000 feet and above, much less conduct excavations for weeks at a time at these altitudes (sometimes including scuba diving to underwater sites), painstakingly recording and filming findings, making life and death decisions about team members' health, and carefully carrying mummies and artifacts down to the villages and towns below. For the scientifically inclined Dr. Reinhard includes explanations of Inca culture, compared to other mountain cultures, archeological excavation and recovery techniques, modern medical procedures such as CAT scans and DNA testing, textile recovery, and high-altitude medicine. For political scientists, sociologists and the general reader he describes the sometimes noble, sometimes petty, always byzantine squabbles among international and local scholars, scientists, politicians, civilian and military authorities, and local ethnic groups for control of the mummies and their artifacts, research rights, and rights to publish popular or scientific articles about them. For the most part, these kinds of disagreements seem to have been amicably resolved. Dr. Reinhard does an excellent job of explaining why archeological excavation, recovery and safe-keeping of the Inca mummies is not desecration of them or their culture, but rather historical and cultural preservation and celebration: the many sites that his team found wasted by looters, sometimes by dynamite, including destruction of the bodies of mummies

Johan Reinhard is one of the true explorers of our time and his achievements in the high Andes will be remembered as among the greatest scientific discoveries in the field of archaeology. Having worked for years in Nepal as an ethnographer, and having participated in several major mountaineering expeditions, Reinhard came to Peru with a rare combination of skills and intuitions that allowed him to transform his academic discipline. Recognizing that the Inca and other pre-Columbian civilizations revered mountain deities as the origin of life and symbols of fertility and made human sacrifices as a means of rendering sacred the bond between humans and the land, Reinhard began the arduous task of surveying the summits of some 250 Andean peaks. A highly accomplished mountaineer and veteran of Everest expeditions, he possessed the unique combination of physical ability and intellectual precision and creativity that allowed him to do what many had deemed to be impossible-complete and systematic archaeological excavations in frozen ground at heights of well over 6000 meters. The Ice Maiden is an amazing account of both these impossible expeditions and the astonishing discoveries that continue to this day to yield insights into the nature of life in the Andes before the arrival of the Spanish and the beginning of the deluge that swept away the greatest empire ever to have been brought into being in the Americas. This book is a must read for anyone interesting in the challenge of exploration and the triumph of scientific discovery.

Johan Reinhard has succeeded in telling a story in such a way that it will appeal to a wide audience - youngsters as well as oldsters, lay persons as well as technical experts. Dr. Reinhard is an excellent communicator and his book contains all the elements of an engrossing novel - mysterious and chilling religious practices, daunting physical obstacles, political intrigue - yet it proves that real life can be more interesting than fiction. The book is very readable and is difficult to put down once started. Dr. Reinhard has clearly done his homework in terms of researching the lone-gone Inca civilization and how it relates to the present situation in Peru and how the Ice Maiden and other mummies form a bridge between past and present. The generous use of illustrations adds tremendously to the enjoyment and understanding of one of the most important archeological finds of the 20th century.