The Children of the Inca

The most unsettling frozen discovery ever made occurred in 1999, when a team of archaeologists climbed the summit of Mount Llullaillaco on Argentina-border. Chile's They discovered evidence of one of humanity's most heinous acts, human sacrifices, inside an icy tomb. Not one, but three infants were placed in a confined chamber and left to freeze to death, unwittingly becoming the best-preserved ice mummies ever discovered.

The Inca sacrificed the juveniles roughly 500 years ago. They were two little children, a boy and a girl, both about six years old when they died, and a teenage girl known as La Doncella or The Maiden. The three children were given a unique diet in the months preceding up to their sacrifice, which included coca leaves and a corn beer called chicha, according to tests. Their intake of both increased dramatically in the latter weeks of their lives, implying that the children were kept in a condition of near-constant inebriation in the weeks preceding their deaths.

Found: in 1999
Location: Mount Llullaillaco, between Argentina and Chile