Scientists examining a 2,000-year-old ice mummy have discovered tattoos so intricate that today’s ink artists would be proud to call them their own. The international team of archaeologists used high-resolution digital imaging techniques to examine the tattoos on the mummy from the Pazyryk culture of Siberia.
Tattooing was likely widespread during prehistory, but the lack of surviving tattoos means it is difficult to investigate. The so-called ‘ice mummies’ of Siberia’s Altai mountains are an exception, since their deep burial chambers encased in permafrost sometimes preserve the skin (and therefore tattoos) of those buried within. Senior author of the research, Dr Gino Caspari from the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and the University of Bern: “The tattoos of the Pazyryk culture – Iron Age pastoralists of the Altai Mountains – have long intrigued archaeologists due to their elaborate figural designs.”
Despite this, detailed studies of the tattoos are rare, as high-resolution images were not previously available.
“Prior scholarship focused primarily on the stylistic and symbolic dimensions of these tattoos, with data derived largely from hand-drawn reconstructions”, explains Dr Caspari. “These interpretations lacked clarity regarding the techniques and tools used and did not focus much on the individuals but rather the overarching social context.”
To provide a more accurate means to explore ancient tattooing, archaeologists produced a 3-D scan of one tattooed Pazyryk mummy using newly available sub-millimetre resolution, digital near-infrared photography.
By working with modern tattooers, they examined the tattoos in greater detail than ever before, identifying the individual tools and techniques used to make them. Remarkably, they found a level of detail and care in the tattoos that resembled our modern version of the art.
The researchers found that the tattoos on the right forearm were more detailed and technical than those on the left. This suggests that different tattooers, or the same tattooer during different stages of their development, contributed to the art.
Importantly, this indicates that tattooing was not simply a form of decoration in the Pazyryk culture but rather a skilled craft that required formal training and technical ability.
“The study offers a new way to recognise personal agency in prehistoric body modification practices”, says Dr Caspari. “Tattooing emerged not merely as symbolic decoration but as a specialised craft – one that demanded technical skill, aesthetic sensitivity, and formal training or apprenticeship.”
Having identified individual differences behind ancient tattoos for the first time as well as the intricacy and the skill required, the researchers state that far from being primitive and careless in their work, prehistoric tattoo artists in Siberia were actually not unlike modern professionals today.
“This made me feel like we were much closer to seeing the people behind the art, how they worked and learned and made mistakes”, Dr Caspari concludes. “The images came alive.”
Their results have now been published in the Antiquity journal.