INCAN children who were sacrificed 500 years ago were regularly given drugs and alcohol in their final months to make them more compliant in the ritual that ultimately killed them, new research suggests.
Archaeologists analyzed hair samples from the frozen mummies of the three children, who were discovered in 1999, entombed within a shrine near the 22,100-foot (6,739 meters) summit of the Argentinian volcano Llullaillaco.
The samples revealed that all three children consistently consumed coca leaves (from which cocaine is derived) and alcoholic beverages. But the oldest child, the famed "Maiden," ingested markedly more of the substances.
Coca was a highly controlled substance during the height of the Inca Empire, when the children were sacrificed.
The evidence, combined with other archaeological and radiological data, suggests that the Maiden was treated very differently from the other two children, Llullaillaco Boy and Lightning Girl (so named by researchers because the mummy appears to have been struck by lightning).
After being selected for the deadly rite, the Maiden likely underwent a type of status change, becoming an important figure to the empire; the other two children may have served as her attendants.
"[The Maiden] became somebody other than who she was before," said study lead author Andrew Wilson, an archaeologist at the University of Bradford in the U.K. "Her sacrifice was seen as an honor."
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