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!
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!)
> 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
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
> 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.
This comment absolutely comes across as some weird diversion-sewing tactic Russia bots use.
“This random person, who I’ve never met, who studies a topic I know nothing about, in a country I’ve never been to, studying a subject I’ve never seen before, doing something lots of people do, can’t POSSIBLY be passionate about his highly unique job???”
I suppose it could be screamingly-loud depression.
Welcome to the orange-site
Why? He is that interested he is willing to permanently get his skin. This is the right person for the job.
It seems like pretty standard experimental archaeology from the description.
How do you feel about Newton poking a bodkin into his eye to see the distortions?
Not hunt depicting tattoos on a female body though. Indicating that the old narrative of the male hunter, female gatherer is probably wrong.
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.
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).
So like Corporate Memphis for the medieval age.
In exactly nothing except the use of flatness, yes
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)
As far as I know, the earliest known example demonstrating accurate perspective dates from the Renaissance.
That doesn't mean everything was flat. Other projections were used instead of perspective to create an illusion of depth. Indeed, we still sometimes use them today, like for isometric games. There were also some works that show elements of perspective prior to the Renaissance, but afaik, none that converge perfectly across the work
i was also taught this in school, despite it being bizarrely obviously wrong?
It's a popular meme in education just like the idea of barter being some pre-currency "natural state" of exchange which also falls apart under scrutiny.
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.
> 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.
> the church killed everyone that was talented and didn't join their ranks, effectively wiping out a lot of knowledge (by design)
Citation very much needed
I believe they are relating this to Church and religion, with the God almighty only giving us a short life to suffer on Earth, after which we are perished.
So ultimately, "Church" killed everyone.
/s
This is incredibly ignorant. The Church didn't kill anyone for being good at art, and in fact did more for the development of fine art than any other institution in human history.
So if someone was a good pagan artist, the church was cool with that?
As I understand it, being an artist was a trade. If there were no customers asking for pagan art, there would have been no pagan art.
Customers were not allowed to ask for pagan art, on penalty of death for large portions of the time we are talking about.
Looking at religious art and thinking religion destroyed/hampered art is a hot take honestly.
If anything the opposite argument would be that without relgion art has devolved has more merit than this.
The designs are beautiful but there’s no evidence at all of perspective which is a specific technique using a vanishing point.
It's great art, but I don't see any perspective.
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.
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.
Not really. Just a slightly different art style than what you're used to.
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.
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.
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.
Your upper body/legs or animals'?
It's good to see that these weren't "AI-enhanced" (hallucinated) images, although I'm curious what postprocessing they used.
> 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.
How do they know these were tattoos and not drawn on the skin after death?
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.
Tattoos are identified by microscopic examination showing ink particles embedded within dermal tissue layers, while post-mortem markings would only appear on the surface.
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.
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.
i just heard a podcast about it last week on 'the ancients'
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3h431IBsszlEVcfUThij6B?si=9...
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.
Probably died of hepatitis!
A flame is enough to sterilise, so I wouldn't be so sure.
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.
It gives us a frame of reference about where we came from
> ...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.
I'd love it if scientists would study my body 2500 after my death.
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.
Another possibility is: if someone today recreates these tattoos, it potentially re-establishes her importance.
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.
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.