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Mummies 101

<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="mummy of Queen Nofretari" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/mummies-101-01.width-990_GoB0jPq.jpg"/>
<figcaption>The royal mummies of ancient Egypt, such as the remarkably preserved body of Queen Nofretari, may be the most famous mummies in the world, but mummies come from various cultures and time periods.
        
        <div class="credit">Courtesy University of Chicago Library</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<p>
	Historically, quick drying has been the most common method of mummification, since bacteria and fungi cannot grow where there is no water. Mummies can be dried in the sun, with fire or smoke, or with chemicals. Since most bacteria and fungi cannot live in sub-freezing temperatures, permanent freezing can also produce a mummy. Placing a body in an oxygen-free environment, such as a peat bog, will also cause mummification, because microorganisms can't live without air. Yet another way to create a mummy is to bury it in soil containing chemicals that kill bacteria and fungi.</p>
<p>
	Some of the world's best known mummies were created accidentally, when a body's final resting place happened to prevent the natural process of decay. But many cultures around the world have sought to mummify their dead on purpose. The process of artificially preserving a dead body is called "embalming," and the methods used are as varied as the cultures themselves.</p>
<h3>
	Egyptians: the masters of mummification</h3>
<p>
	Ancient Egyptians are perhaps the best known mummy-makers—though initially, it was their climate, not their skill, that preserved their dead. Arid desert winds and blazing hot sand could dry corpses out quickly enough to mummify them. In fact, the oldest-known Egyptian mummy, dated around 3500 BC, is believed to have been created this way.</p>
<p>
	The first "artificial" Egyptian mummies were made around 3000 BC. These early efforts at embalming were crude, but reflected the culture's emerging beliefs about preserving the dead to achieve eternal life.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="image of Hall of Judgment on papyrus" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/mummies-101-02.width-990_zBPSjqe.jpg"/>
<figcaption>The ancient Egyptians believed that, in the transition from this world to an eternal afterlife, the dead would pass through a "Hall of Judgment." This image shows the critical "weighing of the heart" ceremony.
        
        <div class="credit">© British Museum/HIP/Art Resource</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<p>
	Initially, mummification was so expensive that it was a privilege enjoyed only by the Pharaoh and a few favorites. Everybody else was given a simple grave burial in one of the vast cemeteries or "necropolises" of the time. But the promise of eternal life was so alluring, that it wasn't long before wealthy Egyptians began signing up for mummification, too. By 1550 BC, every Egyptian who could afford it was mummified.</p>
<p>
	Embalming became an art—practiced in booths set up along the banks of the Nile river. A top notch embalming job took seventy days. The first forty of these were spent drying out the corpse. The process began with the removal of the lungs, stomach, liver and intestines through an abdominal incision on the left side of the body. The brain was removed through the nose with an implement called a brain hook, which looked something like a crochet needle. The heart, believed to be the source of thought, was left inside the body.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="x-ray of skull with brain hook" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/mummies-101-03.width-990_ugxzFX1.jpg"/>
<figcaption>This x-ray is from a study exploring how the Egyptians likely used brain hooks during the embalming process.
        
        <div class="credit">Courtesy F. Filce Leek</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<p>
	After the organs were removed, the body was rinsed with wine, which helped kill any remaining bacteria. It was then covered and packed with a form of natural salt called natron and left to dry on the embalming table. Forty days later, it would be blackened and shriveled, but ready for restoration.</p>
<p>
	The ancient Egyptians believed that a person's Ka (vital force) and Ba (personality) left the body at the time of death. But they also believed that Ka and Ba could be lured back if an idealized re-creation of the body was offered. This re-unification of body and spirit was the ticket to the nether world.</p>
<p>
	To make sure the spirit could find the body (which by now looked like a withered prune) a restorative beautification process was necessary. The skin of the corpse was massaged to make it supple, the body was stuffed and perfumed, and padding was slipped under the skin to approximate plump flesh. Finally, rouge and other paints were applied. The last step was to coat the mummy in warm resin and wrap it from head to foot in layer after layer of linen strips. About 150 yards—the length of one and a half football fields—were used.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="mummy head of Thutmosis I" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/mummies-101-04.width-990_cMQsvbJ.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Embalmers took the utmost care with the body of Pharaoh Thutmosis I, the third king of the 18th Dynasty. His mummy, well over 3,000-years-old, retains a lifelike appearance.
        
        <div class="credit">Courtesy University of Chicago Library</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<p>
	Egyptians stopped making mummies between the fourth and seventh century AD, when many Egyptians became Christians. But it's estimated that, over a 3000-year period, more than 70 million mummies were made in Egypt.</p>
<h3>
	Early South American and Inca mummies</h3>
<p>
	While the ancient Egyptians may be the best-known mummy makers, they were not the first. A very sophisticated fishing tribe called the Chinchoros, who lived on the north coast of what is now Chile, were embalming their dead as early as 5000 BC.</p>
<p>
	Chinchoros embalmers disassembled their corpses, chemically treated the internal organs to prevent decay, and then reassembled the pieces. They often added wood supports along the spinal column, arms and legs, filled in the body cavity with fiber or feathers, and coated the exterior of the body with clay on which they painted or sculpted. Infants, children and adults of both sexes were mummified, though some corpses undoubtedly received more attention than others.</p>
<p>
	Further north, another coastal group at Paloma were mummifying their dead as early as 4000 BC. The Palomans used salt to stop decay and carefully positioned their dead with knees drawn to the chest and hands clasped. The bodies were then wrapped in reed matting and buried under the floor of their existing homes.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Machu Picchu" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/mummies-101-05.width-990_SmYkAhv.jpg"/>
<figcaption>The Inca, renowned architects of Machu Picchu, paid homage to their mountain gods with sacrificial mummies.
        
        <div class="credit">© Bartosz Hadyniak/iStockphoto</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<p>
	5000 years later, during the time of the Inca (approximately 1100 to 1500 AD), the Andean tradition of preserving the dead was still intact. Most Inca mummies were arranged in the familiar fetal position and were wrapped in leather or cloth or placed in baskets or sat under huge ceramic jars. These "mummy bundles," often brightly decorated, were buried with food, clothing and other items. Some archaeologists believe that the Inca mummified all their dead, not just the elite.</p>
<p>
	When the Spanish conquered the Inca in the 1500's and 1600's, they forbade the practice of mummification, declaring it pagan. The Spanish destroyed countless Incan burial sites—partly for religious reasons, but also to plunder the gold often buried with mummies. As a result, few Incan burial sites remain.</p>
<p>
	In 1875, archaeologists did manage to uncover a huge burial site at Ancón on the Peruvian coast. Hundreds of shafts, some 18 to 20 feet deep, led to tombs where extremely well-preserved mummy bundles were found. Apparently, the dry climate and high salt content of the region had helped to prevent decay. The mummies were wrapped in cloth, seaweed, leaves, grass matting and furs. Many bundles were topped with a sort of false head, decorated with eyes that stared out into the darkness of the tomb.</p>
<p>
	Perhaps the most remarkable Incan mummies have been those found on high mountain peaks, where the Inca offered human sacrifices to their Gods. Over the years, some 115 of these sacrificial mummies have been found in the high Andes. In 1995, Dr. Johan Reinhard stumbled upon the body of a young girl, barely into her teens, on top of Mount Ampato in the Peruvian Andes. Named "Juanita," she is the best-preserved Incan mummy ever discovered. With long black hair, a graceful neck, and well muscled arms, Juanita was found wrapped in a cocoon of fine textiles and surrounded by gold and silver statues, bags of corn, and other offerings. Reinhard led another expedition in 1996 that resulted in the discovery of "Sarita," another sacrificial mummy. (For more information, see <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/ice-mummies-inca.html">Ice Mummies of the Inca.</a>)</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Johan Reinhard in Andes" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/mummies-101-06.width-990_J9rHaog.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Archeologist Johan Reinhard, who has discovered several Incan mummies high in the Andes, here pays homage to their sacrifice.
        
        <div class="credit">Courtesy Johan Reinhard</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<h3>
	Other embalming methods</h3>
<p>
	Embalming methods usually reflect the tools and materials available to a given culture. For example, the Aleut people, who lived on the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska, mummified their dead by removing the organs and stuffing the cavity with dry grass. Next they laid the body in a stream, where the running water dissolved the body's fat and washed it away, leaving only muscle and skin. The body was then tied in a squatting position and dried in the open air. Once it was dry, the mummy was wrapped in several layers of waterproof leather and woven clothing and placed in a warm cave, either hanging from the ceiling or lying on a platform to keep it off the damp floor. In one Aleutian cave, archaeologists found more than 50 mummies dating back 250 years.</p>
<p>
	In Papua New Guinea, embalmers smoke-cured the dead, covered them in a protective layer of clay and propped them up on scaffolding that overlooked their villages.</p>
<p>
	It's not known exactly how the Anasazi, who lived in the "four corners" region of the American Southwest, mummified their dead. But mummies dating as far back as 100 AD have been found wrapped in fur and leather blankets inside caves and rock holes. Many of these mummies were found wearing a new pair of sandals, presumably for use in the next life.</p>
<h3>
	Accidental mummies</h3>
<p>
	Some of the most spectacular mummies were created accidentally. In 1991, German climbers found a body frozen on top of a glacier near the Austrian-Italian border. Initially, the police and forensic experts who arrived on the scene didn't realize how old the body was—even though he was wearing a grass cape, carrying a bow and arrows and had shoes stuffed with grass for warmth. Later, radiocarbon dating determined that the "Iceman" died sometime between 3350 and 3300 BC—making him the oldest well-preserved mummy in the world.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Greenland ice mummy" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/mummies-101-07.width-990_2Df6TkS.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Like the Iceman, this Inuit child, who died 500 years ago in Greenland, was naturally mummified.
        
        <div class="credit">© Werner Forman/CORBIS</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<p>
	In 1972, hunters found the best preserved human bodies in North America at an abandoned settlement called Qilakitsoq in Greenland. The "Greenland Mummies," who died about 500 years ago, consisted of a six-month old baby, a four-year old boy, and six women of various ages. Protected by a rock that overhung a shallow cave, the bodies were naturally mummified by the sub-zero temperatures and dry, dehydrating winds. Accompanying the eight bodies were 78 items of clothing, most made out of seal skin.</p>
<p>
	Over the years, peat cutters working the bogs of northwest Europe have uncovered hundreds of mummies. The spongy top layer of a peat bog tends to seal off oxygen from the layers below. A bog's naturally acidic environment also helps to create mummies, giving them a distinctively brown, leathery and lifelike appearance. The oldest "bog mummies" are from the Iron Age (between 400 BC and 400 AD) and are thought to have been the Celtic or Germanic contemporaries of the Romans. Strangely, many of the mummies found in the European bogs show evidence of violent deaths. With slit throats and broken skulls, these individuals may have been victims of ritual sacrifice, just like the mummies of China's Takla Makan Desert.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Tollund Man" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/mummies-101-08.width-990_FhNSmV9.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Perhaps the most famous and best preserved of all the bog mummies is the Tollund Man.
        
        <div class="credit">Courtesy Silkeborg Museum</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>

What is a mummy? Get a primer on mummies worldwide&mdash;from ancient Egypt to the Incan Andes to the peat bogs of Europe. 

The Sacrificial Ceremony

<p>
	Tanta Carhua was then taken to a high Andean mountain, placed in a shaft-tomb and walled in alive. Chicha, a maize alcohol, was fed to her both before and after her death. And in death, this beautiful ten-year old child became a goddess, speaking to her people as an oracle from the mountain, which was reconsecrated in her name.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Inca mummy child" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/sacrificial-ceremony-01.width-990_ZPNuhMH.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Very little is known about Capacocha, the sacred Inca ceremony of human sacrifice, but with each new archaeological discovery of a sacrificial mummy, more is revealed.
        
        <div class="credit">© WGBH Educational Foundation</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<h3>
	Accounts of Capacocha</h3>
<p>
	The earliest and only known written accounts of the ritual are chronicles written by Spanish conquistador historians. From the chronicles and from each new discovery of a mummy, the pieces of this great puzzle are put together to reveal an intricate and extremely important ritual that involved sacrifice of children, worship of mountains as gods, and elaborate burial procedures.</p>
<p>
	Sacrifices were often made during or after a portentous event: an earthquake, an epidemic, a drought, or after the death of an Inca Emperor. According to archaeologist Juan Schobinger, "Inca sacrifices often involved the child of a chief. The sacrificed child was thought of as a deity, ensuring a tie between the chief and the Inca emperor, who was considered a descendant of the Sun god. The sacrifice also bestowed an elevated status on the chief's family and descendants." The honour of sacrifice was bestowed not only on the family, but was forever immortalized in the child. It is believed that the sacrificial children had to be perfect, without so much as a blemish or irregularity in their physical beauty.</p>
<blockquote>
	This was the ultimate sacrifice the Inca could make to please the mountain gods: to offer up their own children</blockquote>
<p>
	After a child was chosen or offered to the emperor, a procession would begin from the child's home village to Cuzco, the crown seat of the Inca empire. Priests, family members, and chiefs would accompany the child on this great journey to meet the emperor. Huge ceremonial feasts would take place in Cuzco where the child would meet the emperor and forever bring credit to the family in this important event. Priests would then lead the grand procession to the designated high mountain. Often, a base camp would be established lower on the mountain, at a more comfortable elevation. Here, llamas (which carried up 80-pound loads of soil, grass, and often stones for the camp structures from the villages below) would be coralled, and permanent stone structures would be built to offer shelter to the priests and the child. Meanwhile, high on the mountain's summit, the sacrificial platforms would be under construction and the burial site being prepared. The platforms were large retaining walls built of stone that formed a large tomb-like interior. The child would be placed within the platform along with many burial artifacts, like carvings of llamas, statues made of gold and silver, and ceremonial pots.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="human figurine with feathers" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/sacrificial-ceremony-02.width-990_urub01f.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Human figurines, like this one with an elaborate feather headdress, accompanied the sacrificial children in their mountain tombs. They were likely intended as companions for the children in the afterlife.
        
        <div class="credit">© WGBH Educational Foundation</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<h3>
	A violent death?</h3>
<p>
	On the day of the sacrifice, the child would be fed chicha, a maize alcohol, presumably to ease the pain of the cold, the altitude, and perhaps the fear of dying. Much ritual celebrating would take place at the platform as the child would be wrapped in ceremonial clothing, placed inside the tomb, and surrounded with the sacred artifacts that would accompany him/her into the Other World. This was the ultimate sacrifice the Inca could make to please the mountain gods: to offer up their own children in the highest places humans could possibly reach.</p>
<p>
	Whether the children died a violent death remains a debate among scientists. Skull fractures have been found on most of the sacrificial mummies. Johan Reinhard, the high-altitude archeologist who discovered the famous mummy known as "Juanita," says that she indeed has a skull fracture on the back of her head. He speculates, however, that this was a quick and painless means of knocking the children out so that they wouldn't have to suffer a long and grueling death of exposure to the elements. He believes the children were knocked out with a blow to a cushioning towel on the backs of their heads.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Inca mummy Juanita" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/sacrificial-ceremony-03.width-990_9mQCg2B.jpg"/>
<figcaption>The mummy Juanita was likely between 11 and 15 years old when she died on the peaks of Mount Ampato roughly 500 years ago.
        
        <div class="credit">Courtesy The Mountain Institute</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<p>
	Once the child died of exposure, the priests would continue to return to the site, making offerings of coca leaves and filling in the burial site with dirt. Often a miniature figurine of the child would be placed on the surface near the burial site, along with more simple offerings like ichu, wild grass from the slopes thousands of feet below. For archeologists Jose Antonio Chavez and Johan Reinhard, these are often the first clues they look for in their search for sacrificial Inca children buried on the frozen mountain tops of the Andes.</p>

Disturbing archeological discoveries are shedding light on the Inca ritual of human sacrifice known as Capacocha.

Polynesia's Genius Navigators

<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Easter Island statues &amp; beach" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/polynesia-genius-navigators-01.width-990_mTmzgel.jpg"/>
<figcaption>It's a feat, if intentional, that is perhaps unparalleled in the history of ocean navigation: finding Easter Island. How did the original settlers do it?
        
        <div class="credit">© Sebastien Cote/iStockphoto</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<h3>
	A world of water</h3>
<p>
	The people of the Pacific are intimately tied to the ocean. They sailed the sea hundreds of years before Europeans, using voyaging canoes crafted from island materials and stone tools. The Polynesians approached the open ocean with respect; indeed, the ocean was integrated naturally into Polynesian culture, as they came from small islands surrounded by vast ocean expanses. No other culture embraced the open sea so fully.</p>
<p>
	For the continental Europeans, on the other hand, the ocean was looked upon as a menacing world that only the bravest explorers ventured upon for long periods of time. And even these explorers felt at odds with the ocean upon which they traveled. One of Magellan's chroniclers described "a sea so vast the human mind can scarcely grasp it." To a Polynesian islander, the world is primarily aquatic, since the Pacific ocean covers more area than land in this region. The Pacific, in fact, covers one-third of the Earth's surface.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="blue ocean" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/polynesia-genius-navigators-02.width-990_rKHQtdu.jpg"/>
<figcaption>With far more ocean than land at their disposal, the ancient Polynesians were intimately familiar with the ways of the sea.
        
        <div class="credit">© Dean Turner/iStockphoto</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<h3>
	a learned art</h3>
<p>
	In island culture, the double canoe and its navigator were integral to the survival of the people. As an island became overpopulated, navigators were sent out to sail uncharted seas to find undiscovered islands. For weeks, they would live aboard boats made from wood and lashings of braided fiber. Thousands of miles were traversed, without the aid of sextants or compasses. The ancient Polynesians navigated their canoes by the stars and other signs that came from the ocean and sky. Navigation was a precise science, a learned art that was passed on verbally from one navigator to another for countless generations.</p>
<p>
	In 1768, as he sailed from Tahiti, Captain Cook had an additional passenger on board his ship, a Tahitian navigator named Tupaia. Tupaia guided Cook 300 miles south to Rurutu, a small Polynesian island, proving he could navigate from his homeland to a distant island. Cook was amazed to find that Tupaia could always point in the exact direction in which Tahiti lay, without the use of the ship's charts. Sadly, Cook was never able to learn and document Tupaia's navigational techniques, for Tupaia, and many of Cook's crew, died of malaria in the Dutch East Indies. Unlike later visitors to the South Pacific, Cook understood that Polynesian navigators could guide canoes across the Pacific over great distances.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="ocean sunset" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/polynesia-genius-navigators-03.width-990_cXTuqrD.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Clouds, swells, and other natural signs helped Polynesian helmsmen find their way to islands hundreds of miles away.
        
        <div class="credit">© Simon Bradfield/iStockphoto</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<h3>
	instruments of nature</h3>
<p>
	But these navigational skills, along with the double canoe, disappeared with the emergence of Western technology, which mariners the world over came to rely on. In 1976, the Hokule'a', a replica Polynesian double canoe made by a team of Hawaiian canoeists, voyaged from Hawaii to Tahiti using the ancient navigational techniques of their ancestors. Ben Finney, a member of the team, explains their mission: "Since by the 1960s Polynesian voyaging canoes had disappeared and ways of navigating without instruments had largely been forgotten, those of us who objected to Heyerdahl's ...negative characterizations of Polynesian voyaging technology and skills ...concluded that we would have to reconstruct the canoes and ways of navigating, and then test them at sea, in order to get at the truth."</p>
<blockquote>
	For the ancient Polynesians, finding Easter Island must have been like finding a needle in a haystack.</blockquote>
<p>
	Using no instruments, the canoe team navigated as their ancestors did, by the stars. They had no maps, no sextants, no compasses, and they navigated by observing the ocean and sky, reading the stars and swells. The paths of stars and rhythms of the ocean guided them by night and the color of sky and the sun, the shapes of clouds, and the direction from which the swells were coming, guided them by day. Several days away from an island, they were able to determine the exact day of landfall. Swells would tell them that there was land ahead, and the surest telltale sign would be the presence of birds making flights out to sea seeking food. By sailing from Hawaii to Tahiti, Hokule'a's team was able to prove that it was possible for Polynesian peoples to migrate over thousands of miles from island to island.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="outrigger at sea" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/polynesia-genius-navigators-04.width-990_qBr8mUA.jpg"/>
<figcaption>The outrigger canoe—an integral part of the early Polynesians' oceangoing technology—is enjoying a renaissance.
        
        <div class="credit">© Tim McCaig/iStockphoto</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<h3>
	Return of the Outrigger</h3>
<p>
	With the success of this voyage came renewed interest in Old World navigation. More double canoes were built, and now several teams are attempting to be the first to reach Easter Island, using ancient navigational techniques. No one has navigated a raft or voyaging canoe from Polynesia to Easter Island since the early settlers arrived there in AD 400*.</p>
<p>
	For the ancient Polynesians, finding Easter Island, a small 64-square-mile speck in this vast ocean, must have been like finding a needle in a haystack; but the Polynesian community today is convinced their navigators intuitively discovered and settled this island. "At the backbone of the maritime tradition lies the outrigger canoe," explains archeologist and Easter Island specialist Jo Anne Van Tilburg, "the quintessential symbol of Polynesian mastery of the sea. The outrigger canoe is today part of every Polynesian island child's upbringing, except on Easter Island. There, the outrigger canoe was lost sometime in the mid-1800s." Van Tilburg has been instrumental in reintroducing three outrigger canoes to the island. The islanders' loss of their seafaring past, according to Van Tilburg, "took away the traditional link people had with the sea."</p>
<p>
	For Van Tilburg, the Polynesian canoe is a metaphor in her theories of how the Easter Islanders transported and erected their 15-ton moai. "It's not much different from erecting a mast on a very large canoe. It's a transfer of technology from one industry to another. The people who built these structures were both sailors and farmers, and they used their seafaring technology to help them in moving and erecting their moai....Erecting a mast on a ship or a statue on a platform requires similar abilities, skills, and tools."</p>
<p class="article-footnote">
	*Editor's note: New studies since this article appeared in 2000 posit a later arrival for the first Easter Islanders, a smaller maximum population, and a more complex explanation for what transpired there. See, e.g.: Hunt, Terry. 2006. "Rethinking the Fall of Easter Island. 2006. <cite>American Scientist</cite> 94(5): 412.</p>

How did the ancient sailors of the South Pacific find their way to Easter Island and other distant specks of land?

Pioneers of Easter Island

<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="moai backlit by sun" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/pioneers-of-easter-island-01.width-990_pOrpIJ7.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Where did the original Easter Islanders come from? No one knows exactly.
        
        <div class="credit">© Grafissimo/iStockphoto</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<h3>
	Arrival</h3>
<p>
	Linguists estimate Easter Island's first inhabitants arrived around A.D. 400, and most agree that they came from East Polynesia. The archeological record suggests a somewhat later date of settlement, between 700 and 800.* As early as 5500 B.C. people in Melanesia were voyaging in boats and trading in obsidian. The eastward movement of people continued until Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands were reached, at least by A.D. 300. Voyaging canoes moved east, north, and south to ultimately inhabit Easter Island, Hawaii, and New Zealand, respectively, all in the short period of about 400 years.</p>
<p>
	When Europeans first explored the Pacific and sailed from island to island, they noticed that the people of various islands, no matter how distant, had similar customs. Inhabitants looked similar in appearance, and they were often able to understand one another, even though they came from islands thousands of miles apart. These linguistic links point to a genealogical bond that ties the people of the Pacific to one another. Indeed, in 1994, DNA from 12 Easter Island skeletons was found to be Polynesian.</p>
<p>
	According to an Easter Island legend, some 1,500 years ago a Polynesian chief named Hotu Matu'a ("The Great Parent") sailed here in a double canoe from an unknown Polynesian island with his wife and extended family. He may have been a great navigator, looking for new lands for his people to inhabit, or he may have been fleeing a land rife with warfare. Early Polynesian settlers had many motivations for seeking new islands across perilous oceans. It's clear that they were willing to risk their lives to find undiscovered lands. Hotu Matu'a and his family landed on Easter Island at &gt;Anakena Beach. Te-Pito-te-Henua, "end of the land" or "land's end," is an early name for the island.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/pioneers-of-easter-island-02.width-990_L5um2qC.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Legend has it that the very first Rapanui, as the people of Easter Island are known, came ashore at Anakena, a beach on the island's north side.
        
        <div class="credit">© Grafissimo/iStockphoto</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<p>
	On Rapa Nui, the more modern, and local, name for Easter Island, large palm forests flourished. Upon arrival, early Rapanui settlers would have planted the plants that they brought with them: banana trees, taro root, and perhaps even the sweet potato.</p>
<h3>
	Enigmas</h3>
<p>
	The existence of the sweet potato in Polynesia appears to leave open the question of who were the original inhabitants of Rapa Nui. Botanists have proven that the sweet potato originally came from South America. Does this mean that people from South America could have colonized the Pacific?</p>
<p>
	According to Thor Heyerdahl, people from a pre-Inca society took to the seas from Peru and voyaged east to west, sailing in the prevailing westerly trade winds. He believes they may have been aided, in an El Niíño year, when the course of the winds and currents may have hit Rapa Nui directly from South America. In 1947, Heyerdahl himself showed that it was possible, at least in theory; using a balsa raft named Kon Tiki, he drifted 4,300 nautical miles for three months and finally ran aground on a reef near the Polynesian island of Puka Puka.</p>
<blockquote>
	Some estimate the population reached a high of 9,000 by 1550.</blockquote>
<p>
	There is little data to support Heyerdahl. Archeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg, who is unconvinced by Heyerdahl's theory, notes that "all archeological, linguistic, and biological data" point to Polynesian origins in island Southeast Asia. Interestingly, though, there are stone walls on Rapa Nui that resemble Inca workmanship. Heyerdahl contests that the scientific community has not addressed the fact that these walls are distinct in their Andean style. Even Captain Cook in 1774 noticed the quality of stonework in the supporting walls near the moai: "The workmanship is not inferior to the best plain piece of masonry we have in England. They use no sort of cement; yet the joints are exceedingly close, and the stones morticed and tenanted [sic] one into another, in a very artful manner."</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Inca wall &amp; Easter Island wall" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/pioneers-of-easter-island-03.width-990_5AHkYee.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Which wall is Incan and which Rapanui? The similarities in fine stonework have intrigued scholars. (The Easter Island wall is on the bottom.)
        
        <div class="credit">© Darek Niedzieski/iStockphoto (top); © Cliff Wassmann/iStockphoto (bottom)</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<p>
	So how to explain the sweet potato and superb stonework? It may be that the Polynesians sailed as far as South America in their migratory explorations, and then, some time later, turned around and returned to the south Pacific, carrying the sweet potato with them. Or perhaps there were visits from Peruvians who brought the sweet potato and their skilled understanding of stone masonry with them. Undisputed is the fact that the sweet potato was, for the Rapanui people, "the underpinning of Rapanui culture. Literally, it was, according to Van Tilburg, "fuel for moai building."</p>
<h3>
	History</h3>
<p>
	From at least 1000 to 1680, Rapa Nui's population increased significantly. Some estimate the population reached a high of 9,000 by 1550. Moai carving and transport were in full swing from 1400 to 1600, just 122 years before first contact with European visitors to the island.</p>
<p>
	In those 122 years, Rapa Nui underwent radical change. Core sampling from the island has revealed a slice of Rapa Nui history that speaks of deforestation, soil depletion, and erosion. From this devastating ecological scenario it is not hard to imagine the resulting overpopulation, food shortages, and ultimate collapse of Rapa Nui society. Evidence of cannibalism at that time is present on the island, though very scant. Van Tilburg cautiously asserts, "The archeological evidence for cannibalism is present on a few sites. Analysis of this evidence is only preliminary in most cases, making it premature to comment on the scope and intensity of the practice as a cultural phenomenon."</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="fallen moai" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/pioneers-of-easter-island-04.width-990_OzIkmIj.jpg"/>
<figcaption>By the 1870s, when a census was taken, the population of Rapa Nui had fallen to just over 100 people. It has now returned to more than 3,000.
        
        <div class="credit">© Grafissimo/iStockphoto</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<p>
	Most scholars point to the cultural drive to complete the colossal stone projects on Rapa Nui as the key cause of depletion of the island's resources. But it wasn't the only one. Palm forests disappeared, cleared for agriculture as well as for moving moai. Van Tilburg comments, "The price they paid for the way they chose to articulate their spiritual and political ideas was an island world which came to be, in many ways, but a shadow of its former natural self."</p>
<p>
	The world that the Europeans first observed when they arrived on Rapa Nui in 1722 has puzzled us for centuries. What was the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/easter/civilization/giants.html">meaning</a> of the massive stone human statues on the island? How did they <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/easter/move/past.html">transport and erect</a> these multi-ton statues? And, finally, how did the original inhabitants <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/easter/civilization/navigation.html">arrive</a> on this remote island?</p>
<p>
	 </p>
<p class="article-footnote">
	*Editor's note: New studies since this article appeared in 2000 posit a later arrival for the first Easter Islanders, a smaller maximum population, and a more complex explanation for what transpired there. See, e.g.: Hunt, Terry. 2006. "Rethinking the Fall of Easter Island. 2006. <cite>American Scientist</cite> 94(5): 412.</p>

Most scholars agree the first Easter Islanders were Polynesian, but how to explain the sweet potato and Inca-like walls?

The Inca's engineering of roadways and agricultural terraces in mountainous terrain was one key to the expansion of the empire.

The Lost Inca Empire

<p>The wealth and sophistication of the legendary Inca people lured many anthropologists and archaeologists to the Andean nations in a quest to understand the Inca's advanced ways and what led to their ultimate demise.</p><h3>Opulent wealth</h3><p>To imagine oneself living in the world of the Inca, one would have to travel back 500 years into a magnificent society made up of more than 10 million subjects. Cuzco, which emerged as the richest city in the New World, was the center of Inca life, the home of its leaders. "The riches that were gathered in the city of Cuzco alone, as capital and court of the Empire, were incredible," says an early account of Inca culture written 300 years ago by Jesuit priest Father Bernabe Cobo, "for therein were many palaces of dead kings with all the treasure that each amassed in life; and he who began to reign did not touch the estate and wealth of his predecessor but .... built a new palace and acquired for himself silver and gold and all the rest."</p>
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<p>Money existed in the form of work—each subject of the empire paid "taxes" by laboring on the myriad roads, crop terraces, irrigation canals, temples, or fortresses. In return, rulers paid their laborers in clothing and food. Silver and gold were abundant, but only used for aesthetics. Inca kings and nobles amassed stupendous riches which accompanied them, in death, in their tombs. But it was their great wealth that ultimately undid the Inca, for the Spaniards, upon reaching the New World, learned of the abundance of gold in Inca society and soon set out to conquer it—at all costs. The plundering of Inca riches continues today with the pillaging of sacred sites and blasting of burial tombs by grave robbers in search of precious Inca gold.</p><p></p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="gold Peruvian mask" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/lost-inca-empire-02.width-990_w51iV1q.jpg"/>
<figcaption>While some remnants of the Inca's riches remain intact, many were destroyed as looters melted them down for their raw metal.
        
        <div class="credit">© Eduardo Mariano Rivero/iStockphoto</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h3>Growth of an Empire</h3><p>The first known Incas, a noble family who ruled Cuzco and a small surrounding high Andean agricultural state, date back to A.D. 1200. The growth of the empire beyond Cuzco began in 1438 when emperor Pachacuti, which means "he who transforms the earth," strode forth from Cuzco to conquer the world around him and bring the surrounding cultures into the Inca fold.</p><p>Consolidation of a large empire was to become a continuing struggle for the ruling Inca as their influence reached across many advanced cultures of the Andes. Strictly speaking, the name "Inca" refers to the first royal family and the 40,000 descendants who ruled the empire. However, for centuries historians have used the term in reference to the nearly 100 nations conquered by the Inca. The Inca state's domain was unprecedented, its rule resulting in a universal language—a form of Quechua, a religion worshipping the sun, and a 14,000 mile-long road system criss-crossing high Andean mountain passes and linking the rulers with the ruled.</p><p>Referred to as an all-weather highway system, the over 14,000 miles of Inca roads were an astonishing and reliable precursor to the advent of the automobile. Communication and transport was efficient and speedy, linking the mountain peoples and lowland desert dwellers with Cuzco. Building materials and ceremonial processions traveled thousands of miles along the roads that still exist in remarkably good condition today. They were built to last and to withstand the extreme natural forces of wind, floods, ice, and drought.</p><p>This central nervous system of Inca transport and communication rivaled that of Rome. A high road crossed the higher regions of the Cordillera from north to south and another lower north-south road crossed the coastal plains. Shorter crossroads linked the two main highways together in several places. The terrain, according to Ciezo de Leon, an early chronicler of Inca culture, was formidable. By his account, the road system ran "through deep valleys and over mountains, through piles of snow, quagmires, living rock, along turbulent rivers; in some places it ran smooth and paved, carefully laid out; in others over sierras, cut through the rock, with walls skirting the rivers, and steps and rests through the snow; everywhere it was clean swept and kept free of rubbish, with lodgings, storehouses, temples to the sun, and posts along the way."</p>
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<h3>The beginning of the end</h3><p>With the arrival from Spain in 1532 of Francisco Pizarro and his entourage of mercenaries or "conquistadors," the Inca empire was seriously threatened for the first time. Duped into meeting with the conquistadors in a "peaceful" gathering, an Inca emperor, Atahualpa, was kidnapped and held for ransom. After paying over $50 million in gold by today's standards, Atahualpa, who was promised to be set free, was strangled to death by the Spaniards who then marched straight for Cuzco and its riches.</p><p>Ciezo de Leon, a conquistador himself, wrote of the astonishing surprise the Spaniards experienced upon reaching Cuzco. As eyewitnesses to the extravagant and meticulously constructed city of Cuzco, the conquistadors were dumbfounded to find such a testimony of superior metallurgy and finely tuned architecture.</p><p></p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Inca stonework" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/lost-inca-empire-03.width-990_h1pDswJ.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Inca walls show remarkable craftsmanship. The blocks have no mortar to hold them together yet stay tight because of their precise carving and configuration.
        
        <div class="credit">© Bartosz Hadyniak/iStockphoto</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Temples, edifices, paved roads, and elaborate gardens all shimmered with gold. By Ciezo de Leon's own observation the extreme riches and expert stone work of the Inca were beyond belief: "In one of (the) houses, which was the richest, there was the figure of the sun, very large and made of gold, very ingeniously worked, and enriched with many precious stones....They had also a garden, the clods of which were made of pieces of fine gold; and it was artificially sown with golden maize, the stalks, as well as the leaves and cobs, being of that metal....Besides all this, they had more than twenty golden (llamas) with their lambs, and the shepherds with their slings and crooks to watch them, all made of the same metal. There was a great quantity of jars of gold and silver, set with emeralds; vases, pots, and all sorts of utensils, all of fine gold....it seems to me that I have said enough to show what a grand place it was; so I shall not treat further of the silver work of the chaquira (beads), of the plumes of gold and other things, which, if I wrote down, I should not be believed."</p><h3>Machu Picchu and Living at Heights</h3><p>What remains of the Inca legacy is limited, as the conquistadors plundered what they could of Inca treasures and in so doing, dismantled the many structures painstakingly built by Inca craftsmen to house the precious metals. Remarkably, a last bastion of the Inca empire remained unknown to the Spanish conquerors and was not found until explorer Hiram Bingham discovered it in 1911. He had found Machu Picchu, a citadel atop a mountainous jungle along the Urubamba River in Peru. Grand steps and terraces with fountains, lodgings, and shrines flank the jungle-clad pinnacle peaks surrounding the site. It was a place of worship to the sun god, the greatest deity in the Inca pantheon.</p><p></p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Machu Picchu" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/lost-inca-empire-04.width-990_hxb4OL1.jpg"/>
<figcaption>The survival of Machu Picchu over hundreds of years, on a mountaintop subject to erosion and mudslides, is a testament to Inca engineering.
        
        <div class="credit">© Bartosz Hadyniak/iStockphoto</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps most unique about Inca civilization was its thriving existence at altitude. The Incas ruled the Andean Cordillera, second in height and harshness to the Himalayas. Daily life was spent at altitudes up to 15,000 feet and ritual life extended up to 22,057 feet to Llullaillaco in Chile, the highest Inca sacrificial site known today. Mountain roads and sacrificial platforms were built, which means a great amount of time was spent hauling loads of soil, rocks, and grass up to these inhospitable heights. Even with our advanced mountaineering clothing and equipment of today, it is hard for us to acclimatize and cope with the cold and dehydration experienced at the high altitudes frequented by the Inca. This ability of the sandal-clad Inca to thrive at extremely high elevations continues to perplex scientists today.</p>
<div class="newsletter"></div>
<h3>The Conquest</h3><p>How did Pizarro and his small army of mercenaries, totaling less than 400, conquer what was becoming the world's largest civilization? Much of the "conquest" was accomplished without battles or warfare as the initial contact Europeans made in the New World resulted in rampant disease. Old World infectious disease left its devastating mark on New World Indian cultures. In particular, smallpox spread quickly through Panama, eradicating entire populations. Once the disease crossed into the Andes its southward spread caused the single most devastating loss of life in the Americas. Lacking immunity, the New World peoples, including the Inca, were reduced by two-thirds.</p><p>With the aid of disease and the success of his initial deceit of Atahualpa, Pizarro acquired vast amounts of Inca gold which brought him great fortune in Spain. Reinforcements for his troops came quickly and his conquest of a people soon moved into consolidation of an empire and its wealth. Spanish culture, religion, and language rapidly replaced Inca life and only a few traces of Inca ways remain in the native culture as it exists today.</p><p></p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Peruvian girl" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/lost-inca-empire-05.width-990_uPDJUTW.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Indigenous people of Peru today retain some echoes of the Inca way of life, but most of the culture has vanished.
        
        <div class="credit">© Bartosz Hadyniak/iStockphoto</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p></p>

<p>Get an overview of the rise and fall of the largest empire to ever rule South America.</p>

A Short History of Ballooning

<div class="related"></div>
<p>The caged duck looked down as terra firma slowly drifted away. Above the duck, a balloon, constructed of paper and fabric, provided the lift necessary to carry aloft the duck and its companions, a sheep and a rooster. Never before had a human, let alone a duck, flown in a balloon.</p>
<p></p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="De Rozier &amp; Marquis flight" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/short-history-of-ballooning-01.width-990_qh9atbf.jpg"/>
<figcaption>A French collecting card depicting the first-ever manned balloon flight by De Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes
        
        <div class="credit">Wikimedia Commons/Public domain</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p></p>
<p>The year was 1783, a milestone year for aviation—the dream of flying had finally been realized. On October 15 of that year, a few months after the duck's historic flight, a balloon called Aerostat Reveillon, launched in France and carrying scientist Jean-François Pilâtre De Rozier, rose to the end of its 250-foot tether. It stayed aloft for 15 minutes and then landed safely nearby. A month later, De Rozier and a companion, the Marquis d'Arlandes, flew untethered to 500 feet and traveled about five and a half miles in a 20-minute flight—the first "free flight" made by man.</p><p>Designed by the Montgolfier brothers, Joseph-Michel and Jacques-ítienne, the balloon was heated by a straw fire that later caused the balloon to catch on fire. But the Montgolfier brothers, undaunted, went on to design other balloons, including the first successful balloon that was unmanned (and unducked, for that matter).</p><p>Although these early, comparatively crude balloons were a far cry from today's high-tech contraptions, the science of ballooning and sending humans aloft had begun. In the years to follow, humans had access to the skies like never before, and with the advent of hydrogen ballooning, even the sky seemed to offer no limit. What follows is a brief outline of some of the major milestones in ballooning:</p><p></p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Blanchard &amp; Jeffries flight" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/short-history-of-ballooning-02.width-990_lVUZhPU.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Collecting card showing the first English Channel crossing by balloon, Blanchard and Jeffries aboard
        
        <div class="credit">Wikimedia Commons/Public domain</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p></p><p><b>1785—First Across the English Channel:</b> In the early days of ballooning, crossing the English Channel is considered the first step to long-distance ballooning. Two years after his historic first balloon ride, De Rozier attempts the crossing. De Rozier's experimental system consists of a hydrogen balloon and a hot air balloon tied together. Tragically, the craft explodes half an hour after takeoff, and de Rozier and his copilot are killed. This double balloon helium/hot air system, however, remains among the most successful designs for long-distance ballooning. This same year, French balloonist Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries become the first to fly across the English Channel.</p><p><b>1793—First Flight in North America:</b> On January 9, Jean-Pierre Blanchard makes a 45-minute flight from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Gloucester County, New Jersey. George Washington is present to see the balloon launch.</p><p><b>1794 to 1945—First Use in Wars:</b> From the U.S. Civil War through World Wars I and II, balloons come into play as tools for warfare, surveillance, transportation, and communication.</p><p></p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Piccard with gondola" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/short-history-of-ballooning-03.width-990_L84F6Yk.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Auguste Piccard by his aluminum gondola, September 1930
        
        <div class="credit">German Federal Archive/Wikimedia Commons</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p></p>
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<p><b>1932—First Manned Flight to Stratosphere, and First Use of Pressurized Capsule:</b> On August 18, Auguste Piccard, a Swiss scientist, and a companion, Max Cosyns, soar into the stratosphere in a balloon designed by Piccard that includes a pressurized aluminum gondola. The pair set a new altitude record of over 52,000 feet. Over the next few years, in the push to reach ever higher into the stratosphere, balloonists continue to break altitude records almost monthly.</p><p><b>1935—New Altitude Record Set, Remains For 20 Years:</b> Explorer II, a helium gas balloon, sets the altitude record at 72,395 feet, or 13.7 miles, with two crew members on board, Captain Albert Stevens and Orvil Anderson. This flight serves as a milestone for aviation and paves the way for future space travel and the concept of manned flight in space. The highly publicized flight is also able to carry live radio broadcasts from the balloon.</p><p></p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Kittinger parachute jump" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/short-history-of-ballooning-04.width-990_h0zq0Va.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Joe Kittinger leaping from an Air Force balloon at 102,800 feet
        
        <div class="credit">Volkmar Wentzel/U.S. Air Force/Public domain</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p></p><p><b>1960—Altitude Record and Highest Parachute Jump:</b> On August 16, Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger jumps from a balloon at a breathtaking altitude of 102,800 feet (19.4 miles). Kittinger sets a world high-altitude parachute jump and freefall record that still stands today.</p><p><b>1961—Current Official Altitude Record Set:</b> Commander Malcolm Ross and Lieutenant Commander Victor Prather of the U.S. Navy ascend to 113,739.9 feet in <i>Lee Lewis Memorial</i>, a polyethylene balloon. They land in the Gulf of Mexico where, with his pressure suit filling with water and unable to stay afloat, Prather drowns.</p><p><b>1978—First Atlantic Crossing:</b> <i>Double Eagle II</i>, a helium balloon carrying Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman, becomes the first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean. A new duration record is set, with a flight time of 137 hours.</p><p></p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Double Eagle V" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/short-history-of-ballooning-05.width-990_HC7GiXH.jpg"/>
<figcaption><em>Double Eagle V</em> launching from Nagashima, Japan in 1981 on its historic flight
        
        <div class="credit">© Caj Bremer/Sygma/Corbis</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p></p><p><b>1981—First Pacific Crossing:</b> Thirteen-story-high <i>Double Eagle V</i>, piloted by Ben Abruzzo, Larry Newman, Ron Clark, and Rocky Aoki of Japan, launches from Nagashimi, Japan on November 10 and lands 84 hours, 31 minutes later in Mendocino National Forest in California. A new distance record is set at 5,768 miles.</p><p><b>1984—First Solo Transatlantic Flight:</b> Joe Kittinger flies 3,535 miles from Caribou, Maine to Savona, Italy in his helium-filled balloon <i>Rosie O'Grady's Balloon of Peace</i>.</p><p><b>1987—First Atlantic Crossing By Hot Air Balloon:</b> Per Lindstrand and Richard Branson fly a distance of 2,900 miles in 33 hours and set a new record for hot air ballooning. At the time, the balloon, with 2.3 million cubic feet of capacity, is the largest ever flown.</p><p><b>1988—Hot Air High Altitude Record:</b> Per Lindstrand sets a solo world record of 65,000 feet for the greatest height ever reached by a hot air balloon.</p><p><b>1991—First Pacific Crossing By Hot Air Balloon</b>: Per Lindstrand and Richard Branson become the first to traverse the Pacific by hot air balloon, flying from Japan to Arctic Canada in 46 hours. Reaching speeds in the jet stream of up to 245 mph in their <i>Otsuka Flyer</i>, they travel 6,700 miles, breaking the world distance record.</p><p><b>1992—Duration Record Set</b>: Richard Abruzzo, son of previous record-breaker Ben Abruzzo, and Troy Bradley fly 144 hours, 16 minutes from Bangor, Maine to Morocco in a De Rozier balloon.</p><p></p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Fossett balloon" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/short-history-of-ballooning-06.width-990_2dEYS6G.jpg"/>
<figcaption>A later Steve Fossett balloon, photographed in January 1997
        
        <div class="credit">© Mike Stewart/Sygma/Corbis</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p></p><p><b>1995—First Solo Transpacific Flight</b>: On February 14, Steve Fossett launches from Seoul, Korea and flies four long days to Mendham, Saskatchewan, Canada.</p>
<div class="newsletter"></div>

<p data-block-key="ca7pe">Follow a chronology of manned flight, from the very first flight in 1783 to the first solo Pacific crossing in 1995.</p>

Ice Mummies of the Inca

<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/ice-mummies-inca-01.width-990_IaakXXK.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Children sacrificed to the mountain gods are now revealing details of an ancient Inca practice.
        
        <div class="credit">Courtesy Chris Openshaw</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<h3>
	High Sacrifice</h3>
<p>
	He has delicate fingers and hugs his knees, one foot over the other, as if to keep warm. His hair is plaited in more than 200 braids, and miniature idols and keepsakes accompany him in his frozen tomb. Dead for 500 years, this Inca sacrificial mummy found on Chile's El Plomo Peak has opened the door to further inquiry into the strange and mysterious ritual life of the Inca.</p>
<p>
	There may be hundreds of Inca children, sacrificed in Inca times nearly 500 years ago, entombed in graves of ice atop the western hemisphere's highest peaks. To date, over 115 sacred Inca ceremonial sites have been excavated at an elevation over 15,000 feet on some 30 Andean peaks. These high mountain sanctuaries dot the Andes from central Chile to southern Peru. All of the sites are located in the region of the two southernmost Inca quarters, or "suyus," but only a few of these remote and icy summits have yielded finds of much archeological value. The discovery by Johan Reinhard of "Juanita," an Inca ice maiden found atop Mount Ampato in 1995, is the most recent—and some say the most revealing—addition to scientists' understanding of Inca life and culture.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="Andes Mountain" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/ice-mummies-inca-02.width-990_REhRkpM.jpg"/>
<figcaption>The mountains we know of today as the Andes had sacred identities for the Inca.
        
        <div class="credit">Courtesy Micheal Barnes</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<h3>
	Mountain Worship</h3>
<p>
	The Incas worshipped the high peaks that pierce the South American skies. These rugged summits represented a means of approaching the Sun God, Inti, the center of their religion, and many sacrifices were made atop these cold and unpredictable pinnacles. Mountain deities were seen as lords of the forces of nature who presided over crops and livestock. In essence they were the protectors of the Inca people, the keepers of life who reached up toward the skies where the sacred condor soared.</p>
<blockquote>
	It took incredible effort to hold sacrificial rituals in the thin air and life-threatening cold of the high Andes.</blockquote>
<p>
	Many theories exist about why the Incas performed ritual ceremonies, which sometimes included human sacrifices, at elevations approaching 23,000 feet. Most scholars agree that the purpose of the sacrifice, known as "capacocha," was to appease the mountain gods and to assure rain, abundant crops, protection, and order for the Inca people. Sacrifices often coincided with remarkable occasions: earthquakes, eclipses, droughts. On these occasions the Incas were required to offer valuables from the highest regions they could reach—the ice-clad summits of Andean peaks. Truly auspicious events, such as the death of an emperor, prompted human sacrifices, perhaps to provide an escort for the emperor on his journey to the Other World.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/ice-mummies-inca-03.width-990_Lh3haT9.jpg"/>
<figcaption>The frigid and dry mountain air kept the microbes that normally decay corpses at bay, preserving soft tissues like skin and hair.
        
        <div class="credit">Courtesy Chris Openshaw</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<p>
	The fact that many high elevation sacrificial sites are located near trans-mountain roads suggests that sacrifices were also made in conjunction with the expansion of the Inca civilization itself. The extensive roads in the southernmost regions were integral to the expansion of the empire southward. Especially important were the trans-mountain, or east-west, roads, which linked north-south running ranges and valleys over high-mountain passes. Near such routes, the Incas chose high peaks, climbed them, built their platforms, and made sacrifices, sometimes human, to assure safe continued passage and to bless the roads. The mummy of a young boy on Mount Aconcagua, discovered in 1985, could be one such sacrifice. His tomb is near one of the most important trans-mountain paths which today is virtually the same route as the major international highway linking Argentina and Chile.</p>
<h3>
	Remarkable Discoveries</h3>
<p>
	The first frozen high mountain Inca human sacrifice was found atop a peak in Chile in 1954. "La Momia del Cerro El Plomo," the Mummy of El Plomo Peak became its name, and until Juanita, it was heralded as the best preserved. Scientists were able to establish many of the El Plomo mummy's vital statistics: he was male, 8 or 9 years old, type O blood, and presumably from a wealthy family due to his portly physique.</p>
<p>
	A unique set of circumstances made the discovery of Juanita possible. The eruption of a nearby volcano, Mt. Sabancaya, produced hot ash, which slowly melted away the 500 years of accumulated ice and snow encasing the mummy. A brightly-colored burial tapestry, or "aksu" was revealed, the fresh hues remarkably preserved. Since the heavy winter storms had not yet covered the body, Dr. Reinhard was able to recover the mummy.</p>
<blockquote>
	These sacrificial burial sites have preserved the Inca past more vividly than any other discovery</blockquote>
<p>
	The fact that ice preserved the body makes Juanita a substantial scientific find. All other high-altitude Inca mummies have been completely desiccated—freeze-dried in a way—much like mummies found elsewhere in the world. Juanita, however, is almost entirely frozen, preserving her skin, internal organs, hair, blood, even the contents of her stomach. This offers scientists a rare glimpse into the life of these pre-Columbian people. DNA makeup can be studied, revealing where Juanita came from, perhaps even linking her to her living relatives. Stomach contents can be analyzed to reveal more about the Inca diet. Juanita is the closest sacrifice to Cuzco, the Inca capital. This, in addition to the fact that the clothing she was wearing resembles the finest textiles from that great city, suggests she may have come from a noble Cuzco family. The almost perfectly preserved clothing offer a storehouse of information, giving insight into sacred Inca textiles, as well as how the Inca nobility dressed.</p>
<p>
	It took incredible effort to hold sacrificial rituals in the thin air and life-threatening cold of the high Andes. At 20,000 feet, near the summit of Mt. Ampato where Juanita was found, Johan Reinhard discovered extensive camps or "rest stops" on the route to the ritual site at the summit. Evidence of Inca camp sites atop Ampato include remains of wooden posts for large, blanket-covered tents, stones used for tent platform floors, and an abundance of dried grass used for walkways and to insulate tent floors. These are heavy materials that must have been hauled many miles up the barren mountainside. The trek itself to the sacrificial site was a remarkable undertaking, involving whole entourages of priests and villagers, provisions, water, as well as symbolic items used in the ritual, all carried on the backs of hundreds of llamas and porters.</p>
<p>
<figure class="richtext-image full-width">
<img alt="" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://staging.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/ice-mummies-inca-04.width-990_o3QelFI.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Johan Reinhard's climbing partner, Miguel Zí¡rate, on the slopes of Mt. Ampato
        
        <div class="credit">Courtesy The Mountain Institute</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p>
<h3>
	A Mummy Pair</h3>
<p>
	A month after Reinhard's amazing discovery of Juanita, he returned to Ampato with a full archaeological team to explore Ampato further. This time, several thousand feet below the summit, they found two more mummy children, a girl and a boy. It is believed these may have been companion sacrifices to the more important sacrifice of Juanita on Ampato's summit. These children may have also been buried as a pair in a symbolic marriage. A Spanish soldier who witnessed such sacrifices wrote in 1551: "Many boys and girls were sacrificed in pairs, being buried alive and well dressed and adorned....items that a married Indian would possess." Buried with them were cloth-covered offering bundles, nearly 40 pieces of pottery, decorated wooden utensils, weaving tools, and even a pair of delicately woven sandals. At an elevation equal to that of Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America, these sacrificial burial sites have preserved the Inca past more vividly than any other discovery, adding a deeper understanding of one of the world's great civilizations.</p>

High-altitude archeologists have discovered children sacrificed to the Inca's mountain gods. 

Liesl Clark

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