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Book Review
The Ice Maiden by Johan Reinhard
Reviewed by Jim Bartle

Many ACAP members will remember the discovery of the Ice Maiden, nicknamed “Juanita,” in 1995. American anthropologist Johan Reinhard and his climbing partner Mickey Zarate found the perfectly-preserved frozen body of the teenage Inca girl inside the crater of the 6200-meter volcano Ampato, located north of Arequipa. The pristine condition of the body -all the internal organs were still intact, and the clothes and decorative feather headdress were undamaged- made the discovery an immediate international sensation, and it is considered one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the second half of the twentieth century. According to Reinhard, the body was an Inca sacrifice of a young girl on one of the highest accesible summits.

Reinhard had been working on a theory that Inca culture revolved around the worship of mountains, especially as a source of sustenance (water), for fifteen years before his big discovery. I met him in 1981 and we explored a fair amount around Chavín, the Cordillera Blanca, and Cusco throughout the '80s. More accurately, I should say I attempted to keep that speck in the distance in view while I trailed behind, as Joe discovered yet another ridgetop Inca or pre-Inca site. Maybe I'm a little resentful that our adventures were left out of the book, but then again, our mummy count was zero. (I was invited on the fateful trip to Ampato but declined. Later I whined, “If you'd only told me you were going to discover a frozen mummy…”)

Johan Reinhard with frozen mummies and icons discovered on the summit of Llullaillaco (6700 meters) in Argentina. Photo: Johan Reinhard/National Geographic

The Ice Maiden is Reinhard's new book, telling the story of the discovery of Juanita, followed by further discoveries near the summits of Sara Sara, Misti and Picchu Picchu in Peru, and finally on the 6700-meter summit of Llullaillaco in Argentina. The research into the discoveries veers into many fields-not only the expected archaeology, anthropology and ethnography, but also cell and molecular biology, CT scans, DNA analysis, ceramics and textile analysis (amazingly complex), geology, conservation techniques, cooling technology, and cryonics.

This is no dry scientific tome, though. It's a dramatic addition to the tradition of Peruvian archaeological adventures such as Gene Savoy's Antisuyo, Vincent Lee's Forgotten Vilcabamba, and that other one by that fellow from Yale, ummm… Hiram Bingham. The book starts with the dramatic and somewhat fortuitous discovery of the Ice Maiden on Ampato, late on a day when Johan and Mickey were more or less just looking around. He ended up tying the 90-pound bundle onto his back and descending into the night. Once back in Arequipa, he stored it (her?) in Mickey Zarate's freezer while trying to decide what to do next.

I thought the structure of the book would be a bit awkward: a dramatic discovery at the start (Juanita), followed by important but less interesting discoveries on other mountaintops. A bang followed by a whimper, as it were. Boy, was I wrong. The concluding Llullaillaco expedition is the high point of the book (both figuratively and literally), as Reinhard mounts an incredibly difficult dig on the 6700 meter summit -think that one over for a moment: weeks of unrelenting physical labor at 22,000 feet- and discovers a series of frozen Inca mummies, sacrificed girls and boys in even better condition than the earlier ones, with even more exquisite clothing and accompanying icons. I'd heard of these discoveries for years, but had never had an inkling of their true grandeur.

The book falls short in one aspect: the graphics-photos, drawings and maps. This is curious, since it is a National Geographic book. There's an excellent and sometimes jaw-dropping 16-page insert of color photos in the middle of the book, but precious few photos, drawings or maps accompany the text itself. I found this frustrating as I tried to follow the description of an exploration, the location of the finds in an excavation, the quality of the ornamental clothes or the icons discovered without any maps or sketches. All this, especially the research on the mummies and the clothes, becomes quite intricate, and I would have found it easier to follow with a sketch or two. In fact the articles which had appeared in the Geographic magazine were better illustrated than the complete hardbound book. Odd.

Reinhard is a hyper-focused, full-speed-ahead researcher who just drags people along in his slipstream. I should know; I've never been all that excited about archaeological theory, but with Joe it's impossible not to get locked in, following his unflagging lead. His expeditions are usually “on the cheap,” always with close to the bare minimum to get the job done. I observed firsthand how he managed to work on a nearly non-existent budget for many years - since he never wanted to be a on a university faculty, it was hard to tap into veins of academic funding, and constantly depended on tiny grants. He got so used to doing it that way during the long pre-Juanita years (his best funding came when he won a Rolex Award in 1987 - his gold Rolex was later stolen from a safe in India) that he could never really change when his discoveries made it possible to receive much larger grants. He still seems to ask for $12,000 to mount an expedition when an institution is primed to give him $30,000. So it's rented trucks, bumpy bus rides, drafty hotels, and rudimentary camps rather than helicopters, four-star hotels and high-tech gadgets (though he gets enough of those in later years). In the book he marvels at the wonders he can accomplish with the high-powered computer a manufacturer gave him in the year 2000, seemingly oblivious to the fact he could have gotten one years earlier if he'd only thought to ask.

The no-frills style leads to great expedition stories, though. Over time Reinhard builds a strong and trustworthy field team which works beautifully together. Some of the most enjoyable passages are of easy camaraderie and mutual respect between Reinhard and his teams shines through during the descriptions of the later expeditions. He downplays it, but the excavation work day after day at altitudes around 6,000 meters is excruciatingly exhausting, and it takes people with plenty of willpower to keep at it. Reinhard has the kind of personality that makes people want to keep going. And when there's finally a cry of “Mummy!” or “Statue!” at a site it's like the moment of discovery in a mystery novel.

(Today Reinhard has finally taken a formal position, as a “resident explorer” at National Geographic, an oxymoron which has led to innumerablejokes. Even Hillary Clinton asked him how it was possible to be a “resident explorer” when she visited the Ice Maiden exhibit in Washington. Apparently Colin Powell also told Bill Clinton that Juanita just might be the President's type.)

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