2,300-year-old arm tats on mummified woman reveal new insights about tattooing technique in ancient Siberia
Fantastic animal imagery on the forearms of a mummified woman of 2,300 years reveals new information on the art of tattooing in ancient Siberia.
Thanks to advanced photography, archaeologists have discovered that a virtuoso artist used a tattoo tool previously unknown to “wander by hand” the conceptions in several stages.
The new results are detailed in a study published Thursday July 31 in the journal Antiquity.
Pazyryk ice cream mummies are well known for their preserved body decorations which represent animal combat scenes and mythical creatures, including an animal resembling a griffin. The nomadic Pazyryk Culturewho was part of the old Scythian world, prospered at the Iron Age (from the 7th to the second century BC). The Pazyryk buried their dead Huge mounds called kurganswhich were cut in the Siberian permafrost. This style of burial, as well as the first embalming techniques, preserved the bodies of several nobles.
But when the first Pazyryk mummies were found in the 1940s, archaeologists did not notice some of the most subtle tattoos. Infrared imagery in the early 2000s led to the discovery of previously invisible tattoos On four pazyryk mummies.
Now, the digital photography near infrared with resolution submillimimeter has allowed archaeologists to look more closely than ever to tattoos on a mummy, a 50-year-old woman who had tattoos both hands and forearms.
In relation: A surprising reconstruction reveals that the warrior and his 4000 -year burial weapons in Siberia
The new photographs show that the tattoos of the ancient woman were made with lines of uniform thickness. Certain lines were created using a multipoint tool, while others have been manufactured with a finer and single point tool, the researchers noted in the study. The visible overlap of the lines revealed where the tattoo artist stopped working and resumed.
“Many cultures from around the world have traditionally used packets of vegetable spines and thorns”, co-author of the study Aaron Deter-WolfAn archaeologist at the Archeology Division of Tennessee and an expert in the old tattoo, told Live Science in an email. “We are considering the multi-point tool as a bunch of teeth closely in cluster, probably linked with thread or tendon.”
But no solid evidence of tattooing tools has yet been found, probably because the tools have been made of a biodegradable material, said Deter-Wolf.
Stylistically, the tattoo of the woman’s right forearm – an animal combat scene – had many more details than her other tattoos, suggesting that they were made by a more experienced and skilful tattoo artist. It also took two or more sessions, as well as different tool arrangements, to finish tattooing, the researchers wrote.
We know few things about Pazyryk tattoo artists, so it is not clear if the tattoos of the woman’s forearm have been manufactured by several artists with different levels of expertise or by an artist over time. “Whether the tattoo was done in a permanent, moving workshop, or perhaps even as part of seasonal burial rites is unfortunately a question to which we cannot answer,” said Deter-Wolf.
“I have been a fan of the work of this research team for a very long time”, ” Matt housingAn art historian and tattoo expert at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email. “In the end, these methods make the clues of tattoos of individual life as well as cultural belief systems,” said Lodder, “and allow us to consider ancient tattoos as specific moments of creative practice.”
Pazyryk mummies may not yet have abandoned all their secrets. Surprisingly, many tattoos were cut during the embalming process, which could mean that the Pazyryk did not believe that the social or spiritual meaning of tattoos was transferred to the beyond, the researchers wrote.
On the other hand, “it is possible that the cutting of tattoos during embalming had a certain ritual meaning,” said Deter-Wolf. In the case of this mummy, his forearm tattoos had been cut, but his tattoos in the hand did not do it. “This is something that we could better investigate in the future using high resolution images of other preserved tattoos in the region,” he said.
