Ancient Siberian mummies have tattoos too

If you think tattoos are merely a modern trend, consider this: long before electric tattoo machines buzzed in studios from Brooklyn to Berlin, people across the ancient world were marking their skin with ink. One of the most interesting examples comes from the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, where a group of 2,500-year-old mummies has astonished archaeologists with their elaborate body art.

These individuals belonged to the Pazyryk culture, part of the broader Scythian world of Iron Age nomadic peoples who roamed the Eurasian steppe. Buried in frozen tombs that acted like natural deep freezers, their bodies (and their tattoos) were preserved in astonishing detail.

But until recently, scholars could only speculate about how these ancient tattoos were made. Now, thanks to high-resolution near-infrared imaging, an international team of researchers has finally revealed the tools and techniques behind this prehistoric body art.

The study, published in the journal Antiquity by archaeologist Gino Caspari from Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and University of Bern and several other researchers from the USA, France, Kazakhstan, and Russia, not only uncovers the methods used by Pazyryk tattooists but also brings the artistry of individual tattooists back into focus.

The story of the Pazyryk mummies begins in the 1940s, when Russian archaeologist Sergei Rudenko excavated a series of monumental burial mounds, or kurgans, in the Altai. Because the tomb chambers were sealed in permafrost, fragile materials like wood, felt, leather, and even human skin, survived for over two millennia.

On some of the bodies, spectacular tattoos appeared: fierce tigers, elegant deer, fantastical griffins, and birds, often inked in swirling combat scenes. These weren’t random doodles. They reflected the animal art style of the Scythian world, which stretched from China to Eastern Europe.

For decades, the tattoos were studied mostly through drawings, but this flattened the detail and often obscured the real artistry. Infrared photography in the early 2000s revealed even more hidden tattoos, and now, with cutting-edge 3D imaging, scholars are peeling back the skin of time to see how the tattoos were made.

CSI: tattoo edition

Caspari and his team used near-infrared digital photographyon the mummy of a 50-year-old woman buried in “Pazyryk tomb 5,” preserved today at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The images captured sub-millimeter details invisible to the naked eye. As a result, they achieved several interesting discoveries. First, the tattoos weren’t all done with a single needle. Wide, even lines suggest the use of a multi-point tool, while finer details, like antlers and tiny animal features, were added with a single-point instrument. Secondly, they discovered that different hands were at work. In fact, the tattoos on the woman’s left forearm are simpler, less detailed, and somewhat clumsy. On the contrary, the right forearm shows breathtaking skill: animals carefully positioned to flow with the contours of the arm, fine lines that even a modern tattooist would admire, and evidence that the work was done in multiple sessions. This suggests she may have been tattooed by two different artists, or by the same artist at different stages of experience. Finally, the tattoos were cut off when her body was prepared for burial. Unlike some cultures where tattoos were essential for the afterlife, for the Pazyryk, the tattoos seem to have mattered only in life.

Ancient ink recipes and tools

Furthermore, chemical analysis from other Siberian mummies shows that the ink was made from carbonized plant material (essentially soot or charcoal), just like many traditional tattoo pigments worldwide. But what about the tools? That remains trickier. At another Iron Age site, archaeologists found gold needles that might have been tattoo implements, though their exact use is still debated. The Pazyryk tattoos themselves, however, reveal the undeniable signatures of hand-poked puncture tattooing, not incision or subdermal stitching. Imagine the process: an Iron Age tattooist sits with their client, pigment mixed from soot, and a set of fine and broad needles. They carefully press the inked points into the skin, session by session, building swirling battles of tigers and deer that would last a lifetime.

This study has several implications, but most importantly, it reveals that tattooing is one of the most enduring human practices. From Polynesia to the Arctic, from Scythian nomads to modern city dwellers, tattoos are a timeless way to express identity, belief, and artistry. Seeing the skill of a 2,500-year-old tattooist reminds us that body art has always been more than decoration. It is a profound human connection across time.

If you want to learn more, the original article titled "High-resolution near-infrared data reveal Pazyryk tattooing methods" on Antiquity at https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2025.10150.