In
1972, hunters found something in a peculiar grave site in Greenland and
thought it was just a doll, but what they discovered later shocked the
whole world. Apparently it is a mummy, the best preserved human remains
ever discovered in North America.
Inside the peculiar grave are bodies
naturally mummified by the sub-zero temperatures and dry, dehydrating
winds of the shallow cave. The bodies were found stacked on top of each
other with layers of animal skin in between. There are two separate
tombs protected by rocks and they found eight mummies, six women and two
children.
The “Greenland Mummies” were found at an abandoned Inuit settlement called Qilakitsoq which means “place of the small sky”, dating about more or less 1475 A.D.
The first tombs consist of three women, a two-year-old boy, and the six-month-old baby, and the second tomb consist of three women.
image sourceThey thought the small Inuit baby was a doll, soon discovered it was a body of a six month old boy.
image sourceThey believed he was buried alive with his already dead mother. It is believed that no one will take care of him that’s why he was heartlessly buried together with his mother.
image sourceHere’s a depiction of the two graves containing the mummies.
The mystery surrounding their deaths
intrigued scientists. The fact that the two graves contained women and
children but no men puzzled them. Eventually DNA test shows all of them
were related exempt for one. Scientist believed that the burying alive
of the Inuit baby boy is an Inuit custom, a practice purely cruel now.
Although the Inuit believed that the child and its mother would travel
to the land of the dead together.