Purplelake: Day 13 – Jul 4, 2019 Salta, Argentina

The main attraction to visit in Salta today is MAAM (Museo de Arqueologia de Alta Montana), basically translated as High Altitude Archeological Museum. They are devoted solely to archeology in the high Andes. The Inca people and many others had long regarded the high volcano peaks along the Andes as holy places and they would select the best and purest of their offsprings (both boys and girls) to “sacrifice” on these peaks as a ritual to join these remote communities together and to the central empire. MAAM is founded to preserve three such frozen children found on an expedition to 6739m high summit of Llullaillaco, a dormant volcano, in 1999. Due to the extreme cold, their bodies were found to be very well preserved although one of the children suffered from what appears to be burnt damages from lightening strike.

These three mummies are the best preserved among the few sites that had been pilfered by modern day Indiana Jones. One other mummy called Queen of the Hill was not so lucky. Her grave was vandalized and her body was taken from Mt Chuscha near Cafayate. It was abused, ignored, exhibited for money in freak show, and ended up in a private collection. She was only reunited to Salta MAAM in 2001 some 80 years later, and her sad conditions are in total contrast to the other three children there.

Since no pictures are allowed inside, we took some pictures of the video shown outside

The body, hand, fingers all have been preserved remarkably

Extensive non-invasive scanning had been performed on these mummies

One of the children mummies

This is the actual lab where they were examined. They are stored in -18C containers and only one is exhibited at one time

Photo of artifact uncovered at the site

Fascinating exhibits

Funeral urn

This child mummy, Queen of the Hill, encountered totally different fate

We visited the Museo de Bellas Artes de Salta next. Despite its huge building from outside, the collection area that was opened to visit was tiny, probably due to the renovation going on. We cannot complain because the admission was free. We visited another church Iglesia San Alfonso before having our late lunch (and skip dinner) of BBQ for two. It was a mistake as we had so much meat that we couldn’t finish. Worse, we ordered the mixto (mixed grilled) so cuts of unknown parts of the cow appeared on our table with no clue of what we were eating. We needed to continue walking after lunch to work off the meal!