2,500-year-old Siberian 'ice mummy' had intricate tattoos, imaging reveals

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gzx0zm68vo

by dxs • 12 months ago

245 68 12 months ago

I question what we’re learning of such value from a 2,500 year old corpse that warrants leaving this person outside of the ground.

greggsy• 12 months ago

It gives us a frame of reference about where we came from

sigwinch• 12 months ago

Another possibility is: if someone today recreates these tattoos, it potentially re-establishes her importance.

neomantra• 12 months ago

I was amazed by this artistry and my immediate thought was “I need to honor that by 3D printing that!”

Grab photo, convert to SVG, load into 3D modeling program, clean up curves to have good surfaces, extrude color-coded heights, map colors to heights in slicer, print.

meindnoch• 12 months ago

I'd love it if scientists would study my body 2500 after my death.

romaaeterna• 12 months ago

...this person...

In the Phaedo, just before Socrates' death, Crito asks him how he would like to be interred. Socrates objects to Crito's confusion between Socrates the person -- the soul that will shortly be departing -- and whatever will be left over as the corpse.

lukan• 12 months ago

Knowledge?

A dead person is dead and doesn't care anymore. The morbid taboo of not studying dead bodies lead to a looong stagnation in medicine.

Now in terms of practical gains not on the same level, true, but same principle to me.

inglor_cz• 12 months ago

Value is subjective. You may not value learning about the past - which includes knowledge of diseases, art etc. I certainly do.

Scientific discoveries aside, I can see this sort of art coming back. This kind of tattooos is hauntingly attractive, a postcard from another world.

topspin2• 12 months ago

Those drawings show better expression of perspective, motion and proportion than what one sees in medieval drawing. And this is on skin, around limbs, as opposed to parchment.

Genuine art.

ginko• 12 months ago

It's great art, but I don't see any perspective.

topspin2• 12 months ago

I'm not an artist, so perhaps perspective is the wrong term. Depth could be what I have in mind. In the first drawing, on the left, there are parts of the two cat's both above and below parts of the stag. The tail on the cat on the right is elegantly draped over the cats legs. The few deviations from realistic proportions are deliberate: the exaggerated antlers, for example, are done to fill space.

You could engrave that scene into the receiver of a hunting rifle today and it would be admired.

NL807• 12 months ago

In addition to what the other commenter said, the art depicted on the article is flattened, whereas the original piece was wrapping around the woman's forearm. Perhaps the art is visually grounded on a curved surface.

chmod775• 12 months ago

You're probably thinking about some of the more stylized, iconographic medieval art. That was on purpose, not necessarily for lack of skill. There's plenty of modern art styles around today as well that are flat and look nothing like reality.

Besides those "strange" depictions of animals and humans, there is also plenty of medieval art that is still regarded as highly beautiful today (admittedly especially once we're leaning towards the Renaissance).

tokai• 12 months ago

So like Corporate Memphis for the medieval age.

GauntletWizard• 12 months ago

I was taught in school that Perspective was invented in the Renaissance, and before that all art was flat. This is obviously not true to anyone who's studied greecian art beyond a pop-culture level, but that's the level most people have.

It does seem to have waxed and waned; going in and out of popularity to the point of being a lost art multiple times. Wikipedia doesn't go so far as to divide it into eras, but given the time gaps, it's possible that there were multiple "inventions" of perspective in the sense of formalized techniques and pedagogy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_(graphical)

otabdeveloper4• 12 months ago

Not really. Just a slightly different art style than what you're used to.

raylad• 12 months ago

The designs are beautiful but there’s no evidence at all of perspective which is a specific technique using a vanishing point.

nkrisc• 12 months ago

Clearly art has regressed even further. If you look at Pablo Picasso’s works from the 20th century you can see there is even less understanding of perspective and form. If you look at others like Kandinsky you’ll see modern has actually lost all sense of objectivity and merely reduced to shapes and colors.

(I’m being sarcastic and yes, the two artists were chosen for also for the joke some of you may be thinking of).

Not all art styles throughout history valued realism.

ffsm85• 12 months ago

Not all art styles throughout history valued realism.

While there is true, it's also heavily misleading wrt europes history.

The techniques really were lost in the dark ages, because the church killed everyone that was talented and didn't join their ranks, effectively wiping out a lot of knowledge (by design)

And a lot of medieval European art was clearly aimed at realism, they just weren't very good at it because they didn't know the basics.

giardini• 12 months ago

Probably died of hepatitis!

xandrius• 12 months ago

A flame is enough to sterilise, so I wouldn't be so sure.

lupusreal• 12 months ago

That griffin has wings. Seems like a significant finding.

In Greek and Roman texts, griffins and Arimaspians were associated with gold deposits of Central Asia. The earliest classical writings were derived from Aristeas (7th cent. BC) and preserved by Herodotus and Aeschylus (mid 5th century BC), but the physical descriptions are not very explicit. Even though they are sharp-beaked, their being likened to "unbarking hounds of Zeus" has led to the speculation they were seen as wingless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffin

alephnerd2• 12 months ago

Pazyryk is thousands of miles from the Hellenic or Roman world - it's right by Mongolia and Xinjiang. And those interred in Pazyryk were Saka.

It's most likely a simurgh/śyenaḥ/mərəγō saēnō or a Huma/Homāio/Humay, which was a very common in Indo-Iranian culture

While Central Asia is now Turkic speaking, before the Mongol and Turkic invasions, it was historically Indo-European, as was seen with the Sogdian, Bactrian, and Khwarezmian.

The Greco-Roman myth of the griffin itself appears to have it's origins in the Indo-Iranian motif.

That said, the Pazyryk burials were from an era when the Indo-European migration was still occurring, so cultural and linguistics overlaps were still significant.

VTimofeenko2• 12 months ago

My grandfather worked on Soviet radio beacons in the far north of Siberia.

He used to tell stories about the face tattoos being a very important religious and status symbols. Supposedly only the most beautiful women were allowed to have them. Altai is pretty far from the north; it's interesting to see how this tradition spread through the region.

romanhn• 12 months ago

I think tattoos on mummies have been known for a while, though these do look very artistic. The thing that surprised me the most, oddly, is this throwaway sentence:

The team worked with researcher Daniel Riday who reproduces ancient tattoo designs on his body using historical methods.

Now that's dedication to research!

alephnerd2• 12 months ago

tattoos on mummies

On that note, I'd recommend the title scene in the Iranian movie Qeysar [0] from 1969.

A number of the same motifs from 2.5k years ago are still around in Indo-Iranian culture.

Some of the older generations of Pakhtun Hindus still tattoo in that style [1], as a number of the central tribes of the Pakhtun community were Saka [2]. A granddaughter from the community has been working on documenting the culture for a couple years now [3]

On a separate note, highly recommend watching New Age Iranian Cinema (1965-1980ish). It's good stuff.

[0] https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/qeysar/

[1] https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tattooed-blue-skinned...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephthalites

[3] https://www.instagram.com/sheenkhalaiartproject/?hl=en

anjel• 12 months ago

[1] https://archive.is/owdub

andy99• 12 months ago

Now that's dedication to research!

Sounds like a gimmick. Doesn't mean he isn't a legit researcher, doesn't mean he is, but personally it feels more like something you'd see on history channel than actual scientific research; the whole thing seemed less credible after I read that.

MangoToupe• 12 months ago

It seems like pretty standard experimental archaeology from the description.

cma• 12 months ago

How do you feel about Newton poking a bodkin into his eye to see the distortions?

hmmokidk• 12 months ago

Why? He is that interested he is willing to permanently get his skin. This is the right person for the job.

wavefunction• 12 months ago

the taxonomy of the subjects at the specific chronology is provocative, a leopard and a tiger interest me though I suppose many might over-look that, but what do I care for their lacking interest

bjackman• 12 months ago

I have never personally had any impulse at all to get a tattoo, until I saw this guy getting "Ötzi's" tattoos:

https://youtu.be/_BqarmmtLwc?si=fI3Lg9RXTabOuesG&utm_source=...

As soon as I saw the title of that video I knew it would be about 9 Ötzi and I suddenly had a deep longing to get those tattoos! But It feels like instead of copying Ötzi I'd really just be copying this kid off YouTube so I won't.

However I'm still thinking: if I ever get any localized health issues, maybe I'll get an Ötzi-style tattoo there. Since it's thought that his tattoos were likely a form of medicine.

(So far the only health issue I have had was localised... To my anus. I decided to skip that one... Luckily modern fixed it nicely already!)

28304283409234• 12 months ago

Not hunt depicting tattoos on a female body though. Indicating that the old narrative of the male hunter, female gatherer is probably wrong.

ycombinete• 12 months ago

If you look up Daniel Riday you won't be surprised by this.

He is covered in tattoos, and is himself a tattooist specialising in hand-poke and non-machine tattooing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1COALTMnP-8

koevet• 12 months ago

Some years ago I stumbled across pictures of Pazyryk mummies and I felt a stong emotional connection with the style of the drawings, especially the magical animals.

I decided to get the animals tattooed on my arms and I Will continue with the upper body and the legs.

necovek2• 12 months ago

Your upper body/legs or animals'?

userbinator• 12 months ago

It's good to see that these weren't "AI-enhanced" (hallucinated) images, although I'm curious what postprocessing they used.

Theodores• 12 months ago

The internet has played a major role in making tattoos as popular as they currently are, first with Usenet lists, then the web and now with Instagram. The other game changer has been the availability of the single use needles and plastics so it is no longer the same kit getting cleaned in an autoclave. Tattooing is now a viable career option, with options in every town. Not so long ago only big cities or ports would have tattoo studios, in the parts of town that you would find brothels. You would be risking getting AIDS or hepatitis if going under the needle.

Whether you consider this degenerate or high sophistication is a matter of opinion, however, as a society, we can afford such occupations, which requires some level of wealth. Until recent times you would need seven families working the land to afford one family not working the land, with bakers, potters, blacksmiths, clergy, landlords and what not being carried by those working the land.

If you have tattooed mummies, that is an indication that their society could carry people that could specialise in things such as tattooing but also other things, whether that being clergy, education or just being rentier class.

In tattoo parlance, a job stopper is a tattoo on the hands, neck or face. Getting such tattoos means that you are excluding yourself from working in some professions and trades. This works at the higher status level, for example, pop stars, but also at the lower class, the person with no intention of working.

On the individual level, tattoos say a lot about childhood trauma, and, at a society level, much about society.

In conclusion, societies from antiquity that have a culture of tattooing are far from primitive. They had people that didn't have to slave away working the land to live short, brutal lives.

apwell23• 12 months ago

i just heard a podcast about it last week on 'the ancients'

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3h431IBsszlEVcfUThij6B?si=9...

treis• 12 months ago

How do they know these were tattoos and not drawn on the skin after death?

VTimofeenko2• 12 months ago

Inb4: not an expert but I do have some ink.

Tattoos are basically ink being delivered in the lower layers of skin by poking. They look vastly different depending on the healing process. I'd imagine the scientists can distinguish between pre and post mortem punctures pretty well. The amount of ink remaining in the tattoo would probably also be very different.

ethan_smith• 12 months ago

Tattoos are identified by microscopic examination showing ink particles embedded within dermal tissue layers, while post-mortem markings would only appear on the surface.

dclowd9901• 12 months ago

decorations that a modern tattooist would find challenging to produce

Cool article but this is utter nonsense. A good modern tattoo artists is _incredible_ at their craft. Not just technically but artistically.

iamacyborg2• 12 months ago

Yeah, they’re very clearly not familiar with what a good tattoo artist can do.

If anything, over the last couple decades the quality of the average tattoo has hugely matured.

casenmgreen• 12 months ago

2,500 years ago is about 500 BC.

This is quite recent.

It was about that time the Peloponnesian War occurred, which Thucydides and Xenophon documented.

OTOH, I think Siberian peoples then were not advanced. However, here we're talking tattoo and art, which you can imagine being developed more easily, rather than more concrete stuff, such as commerce raiding, building and maintaining hundred of triremes and training the oarsmen and generals to fight them in massed combat, and developing Athens into a city of 250,000 people.

jcmontx• 12 months ago

Reminds me of the Scythian mummy tattoo. A very nice deer with flowers

kragen• 12 months ago

The paper is open access; it's unforgivable that the BBC didn't link it: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/hi...

2,500-year-old Siberian 'ice mummy' had intricate tattoos, imaging reveals

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