Wild tattoos of 2,500-year-old Siberian ‘ice mummy' revealed for first time

New York Post

01-08-2025

The ornate tattoos of a 2,500-year-old Siberian 'ice mummy' have finally been revealed using advanced imaging technology, according to a report.
High-resolution images derived using infrared technology show the long-dead 50-year-old woman was inked-up across her body with tribal animal designs, the BBC reported.
5 The mummy was pulled from the permafrost near Russia's Altai Mountains in 1993.
M. Vavulin
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The intricate and ornate tats show leopards, a stag, a rooster, and a griffin-like creature.
Her arms were tattoo'd with the leopard and stag, the half-lion half-eagle beast was on her leg, and the rooster was tatted on the mummy's thumb, according to researchers.
'The insights really drive home to me the point of how sophisticated these people were,' the study's lead author Dr. Gino Caspari, from the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, told BBC.
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5 Left forearm tatoo.
D. Riday
5 Right forearm tattoo.
D. Riday
'This made me feel like we were much closer to seeing the people behind the art, how they worked and learned. The images came alive,' Dr. Caspari said.
The female mummy is one of three fleshickles plucked from the permafrost on the Okok Plateau in the Altai Mountains in Russia in 1993.
She was part of a Pazyryk tribe — horse-riding nomads who dominated the Eurasian plains from the 6th to 3rd centuries BC.
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5 Hand tattoos, including rooster on the thumb.
D. Riday
The 'Ice Maiden's' tattoos have proved to be an insight into the mysterious Pazyryk tribe who were apparently dedicated and expert tattoo artists.
'If I was guessing, it was probably four and half hours for the lower half of the right arm, and another five hours for the upper part,' Dr. Caspari said, adding, 'That's a solid commitment from the person.'
'It would need to be performed by a person who knows health and safety, who knows the risks of what happens when the skin is punctured.'
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Much like contemporary tattoos, the process included a stencil of the design on the skin first with the ink being inserted under the skin with a needle-like tool, the researchers claimed.
5 The infrared imaging of the mummy's skin showed the leopard print of one of the tattoos.
M Vavulin
'And back in the day it was already a really professional practice where people put a lot of time and effort and practice into creating these images and they're extremely sophisticated,' said Dr. Caspari.
'It suggests that tattoos were really something for the living with meaning during life, but that they didn't really play much of a role in the afterlife.'