Ofrendas a los dioses en las montañas: santuarios de altura en la cultura inka

Abstract

Inka culture has bequeathed us a testament of its faith in its gods, its sacrifices of children, which took place on mountains whose peaks are more than 4.000 m. high. Sometimes these infants died from trauma, according to chronicles, and at other time were buried alive as a part of burial relics and offerings, as is the case of the mummies of the Cerro El Plomo, Aconcagua, and El Toro. They have been subject to many bioantropological studies in order to test the previous accounts of their ways of sacrifice. The best ways of museological curation have been simultaneously studied and determined. According to the caracteristics of their burial relics conclusions were drawn on the particular Tawantinsuyu kindgom to which they belonged. A comparative analysis of three cases from Chile and Argentina is also given.