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考研英语报刊文章阅读及剖析(10) A burial site at 22,000 feet is giving scientists the best look yet at grisly Incan sacrificial rites By modern standards, the hostile summit of Mount Llullaillaco, in the Argentine Andes, is no place for kids. The ancient Inca saw things differently though, and so it was that one day, some 500 years ago, three children ascended the frigid and treacherous upper slopes of the 22,000-ft. peak. The three had spent time at the 17,000-ft. level, taking part in rituals that can only be guessed at. Now, accompanied by a retinue of adults, they moved steadily upward. They would not return. Once at the summit, the children--two girls and a boy, between eight and 15 years old--would be ritually sacrificed and entombed beneath 5 ft. of rocky rubble. They may even have been buried alive. And there the story might have ended but for the tireless efforts of Johan Reinhard, an independent archaeologist funded by the National Geographic Society. Reinhard s specialty is scaling the Andes in search of sacrificial remains; he had already located 15 bodies, including the famed ice maiden he found in 1995. But these three, whose discovery he announced last week, are by far the most impressive. They were frozen solid within hours of their burial. Two of the bodies are almost perfectly preserved; the third was evidently damaged by lightning. The children s internal organs are not only intact but also still contain blood. Says Craig Morris, an expert on Andean archaeology at New York City s American Museum of Natural History: It is truly a fantastic discovery. | 
