Sacred Ice Melting Away: Lessons from the impact of climate change on Andean cultural heritage

[...]Llullaillaco is the only mountain in the area to have a permanent ice field on its high slopes, almost like a small hanging glacier. The frozen bodies of the three Inca children that we eventually discovered after almost one month of archaeological fieldwork, enduring the cold and the extreme altitude of the peak, turned out to be the best preserved ice mummies in the world (cf. [...]of the syncretism with Catholicism, the festivity is nominally dedicated to the worship of an image of Christ depicted on a sacred rock, in the place where Jesus is said to have miraculously appeared to a young indigenous peasant in the eighteenth century. [...]the glaciers that come down from mount Qolque Punku are ritually climbed during the climax of the festivity, in search for sacred ice that is revered for its healing properties.