The mysterious origins of a mummy kept in a German Museum since the 19th century have finally been identified, Live Science reported.

Though some questions remain, scientists have identified the preserved body -- hair intact and in the fetal position with one finger pointed straight up (see above picture) -- as that of an Incan women who lived somewhere between 1451 and 1642.

Because she suffered from Chagas disease, a condition that constricts breathing and digestion, scientists believe she was either used as a convenient sacrifice in a ritualistic killing (in which she was struck in the skull by a hard object), killed ritualistically to end her suffering, or both, according to the study.

"She might have been chosen as a victim for a ritual murder, because she was so ill and it might have been clear that she might have lived only for a relatively short period," Andreas Nerlich, a paleopathologist at Munich University who co-authored the study, told Live Science

Yet, the woman was 20 to 25 years old at the time of her death so she must have been healthy enough to last that long. Thus, theories regarding her death are speculative, according to Nerlich.

Of her head injury, Nerlich said: "She must have received a couple of really severe hits by a sharp object to her skull just before her death. The skull bones that had been destroyed fell into her brain cavity, and they are still there today."

The woman's story was preserved in history because of a shallow burial in the arid sands of the Atacama Desert of South America. Her fluids were removed quickly enough to stunt the process of decomposition.

She made it to Germany by way of Princess Therese of Bavaria, who, on a trip to South America, acquired two mummies. One was lost, but the one in this study travelled to Germany and found a home in the Bavarian State Archaeological Collection in Munich. Bombings and relocation destroyed the mummy's original records, which may have better explained the woman's story.