Archaeologists have found that Incan children were given drugs and alcohol during their final months to make them more compliant in their final moments of consciousness as part of sacrificial rituals, according to LiveScience.
Archaeologists analyzed hair samples from three Incan children that were sacrificed 500 years ago. The mummies were discovered in 1999, having been entombed within a shrine near Llullaillaco, a volcano in Argentina. The results demonstrated that all three children had been consistently given coca leaves, from which cocaine is derived, as well as alcoholic beverages. The evidence shows that the eldest of the three children, known as the Maiden, was given much more of the substance for ingestion.
"[The Maiden] became somebody other than who she was before," Andrew Wilson, the lead author of the study and an archaeologist at the University of Bradford in the U.K., told LiveScience. "Her sacrifice was seen as an honor."
Archaeological evidence has demonstrated that the child serving as the Maiden was treated differently than the other child sacrifices. She was perceived as an important figure, becoming a status symbol to the empire. The other children may have served as her attendants.
All three children were determined to come from a peasant background during a 2007 study conducted by Wilson, who was studying how their diet changed over time. Prior to the sacrificial period, they consumed common vegetables, particularly potatoes. In the year prior to the sacrificial ritual, their diet was altered, with food associated with the elite appearing, such as maize and dried llama meat.
The Maiden, who is believed to have been about 13-years-old, consumed more "elite" foods than the other two children, believed to be about four or five years old at the time of the sacrifice.
In addition to the difference in diet, the Maiden was found with more elaborate clothes and a decorated burial.
"The Maiden was perhaps a chosen woman selected to live apart from her former life, among the elite and under the care of the priestesses," Wilson said.
In June, archaeologists discovered a tomb that provided additional insight into the Wari empire.
National Geographic discusses Inca mummies.
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