MAAM Salta
The highlight of the Museo de Arqueología de Alta Montaña are the mummies of three children, sacrificed in the Inca period on the Llullaillaco volcano (6739 m), with over 100 burial offerings.
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The top two-thirds of this uncu, a knee-length tunic for men, are covered with 80 contrasting squares (tocapu). The pattern seen here is called "Damero con llave inca" (chessboard with Inca key).
In each tocapu appear four small squares with a point in the center, two of them are connected by a diagonal. This "Inca key" is designed in red with yellow and green with blue. It probably symbolizes the alliance between Collasuyu and Chinchaysuyu, the southern and northern parts of the Tawantinsuyu, in relation to the eastern and western Suyos, which could be meant by the squares in the other two corners.
The lower part of the uncu is completed by six horizontal bands in dark blue and red.
The uncu tocapu lay carefully folded on the right shoulder of the 15-year-old Maiden who was sacrificed and buried on the Llullaillaco. The Inca used to send local rulers (curacas) such valuable tunics as diplomatic gifts. When the curacas offered their own children as sacrifices to Capacochas, they apparently gave them the ruler's gift as an offering to take with them into the afterlife. This could explain why valuable male tunics were found in the graves of female victims.
© Photo and summary from a text at MAAM: Universes in Universe
The highlight of the Museo de Arqueología de Alta Montaña are the mummies of three children, sacrificed in the Inca period on the Llullaillaco volcano (6739 m), with over 100 burial offerings.
The Quechua name of the Inca Empire, it means "the four regions together". The 4 regions or provinces are: Chinchaysuyu (northwest, territories of today Peru, Ecuador, and part of Colombia), Antisuyu (notheast, upper Amazon), Contisuyu (southwest of the capital Cuzco), Collasuyu (southern Peru, parts of Bolivia, Chile and northwestern Argentina). The Inca Empire existed from 1438 until the conquest by the Spanish and the death of Atahualpa, the last Inca, in 1533. From the 1470s until the end of the empire, the Inca ruled northwestern Argentina.