The city of Salta has a fairly small and has a very pretty plaza at its heart. The plaza is surrounded by a number of very nice bars and restaurants and full to the brim with people day and night. The cathedral is beautiful and there is a gondola that you can take up to the top of El Cerro, about 1000m, very close to the centre. In fact walking up, taking a coffee in the restaurant at the top and then taking the gondola down is a lovely way to get acquainted with the city when you arrive.
Aside from eating, drinking and lazing around on a park bench in the sunshine, or the ride on the gondola, Salta does offer the visitor one very special surprise in the form of an exhibition at The MAAM (Museum Arqueología de Alta Montaña… The High Mountain Archeological Museum in Salta).
What is in Inside The MAAM Museum of Interest?
Inside this museum, a Salta visitor can see and learn about the three mummy children who are over 500 years old and, incredibly due to the conditions in surrounding mountains where they were found, perfectly intact.
The Museum itself was opened in 2004 and allows the visitor to learn a little about the lives, culture and heritage of the INCAs and the mummy children in particular. The three children were found in 1999 in the Llullaillaco Volcano (above 6739 metres above sea level) in the Andes range.
Detailed Information About the Exhibition in The MAAM Museum
Buried with the children were over 100 other different artefacts that had been offered up to the INCA gods as a ritual sacrifice along with the three youngsters. It was customary to offer up the most beautiful and healthy of children as a sacrifice and therefore seen by the INCA community as a great honour to have your child chosen from many.
The children were found deep underground as though they had been lowered down carefully into some kind of well formation. They were found to have traces of alcohol on their lips, perhaps as a way to subdue them as they were passed down into the wells and one child, the female (thought to be 15 years of age), had been slightly deformed from what appears to have been a lightning bolt.
Why Everyone Must Visit The MAAM Museum if Visiting Salta
The exhibition is fascinating and impossible to describe on paper. Looking at a child’s body, over 500 years old, but in absolute perfect condition is astounding. It makes a trip to Salta even more worthy and definitely well worth the 20 pesos entrance fee.
Tracey Chandler - Tracey Chandler currently writes a weekly column for non-profit organisation South American Explorers in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She also ...
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