A family of eight Inuits frozen for centuries are the best-preserved mummies ever found in North America.

were found in Greenland in 1972. It’s believed the mummification process was accidental, and resulted from the region’s ice-cold climate. The settlement of Qilakitsoq, on Greenland’s west coast, is 280 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Archaeologists think the family died there sometime around 1475 AD. Despite decades of study, researchers have not been able to determine how or why the family died.
The mummies still have their skin, fingernails and hair intact after 500 years of passing away, and they are warmly dressed in fur.

It is thought that the baby was still alive when her mother passed away. Inuit tradition at the time dictated that if a mother died, her children were buried with her. The practice was carried out even if the children were alive to ensure they passed to the afterlife as a family.

Four of the Qilakitsoq mummies are on permanent display at the Greenland National Museum in Nuuk.

📷 – two of the more than 500-year-old Qilakitsoq mummies that were found in Greenland in 1972.