The tattooed hand of a 1200 year old mummy from Peru
Michael Pittman and Thomas G Kaye
The intricate details of tattoos inked more than 1,200 years ago on South American mummies have been revealed by laser scanning.
The mummies of a pre-Hispanic village known as Chancay were discovered in 1981 in the Cerro Colorado cemetery in Peru’s Huaura Valley.
Although it was clear to the naked eye that many of the 100 mummies were heavily tattooed, the ink had flowed beyond the boundaries of the original designs and faded, making it impossible to see what the original markings would have looked like.
In a new study, Michael Pittman At the Chinese University of Hong Kong and his colleagues, they shone lasers on the beads in a dark room and took long-exposure pictures. The lasers made the skin glow, creating a stark contrast to the non-fluorescent tattoo ink.
This technique, which does not harm mummies, has never been used in tattoos. Importantly, Pittman says, it shows not only where the ink is on the skin but also in the deeper layers of the skin.
“This helped us see past the bleeding that had accumulated over the lifetime of the tattoo owner to reveal the finer original design of the tattoos,” he says.
Researchers believe that the tattoos are so fine that they must have been made using a needle and ink technique with a cactus needle or sharpened animal bone, rather than the “cut and fill” method.
Tattoos seem to have been important to the Chancay, Pittman says, as they are found in a large proportion of the known mummified human remains.
The tattooed forearm of a Chancay mummy
Michael Pittman and Thomas G Kaye
“Many of the designs, geometric patterns with triangles and diamonds, are also shared in other artistic media such as ceramics and textiles, and some ceramic human figures also display geometric tattoo designs,” he says.
Some tattoos seem like they took special effort because of their intricate designs, while others are small and simple. “So to some extent, ancient Chancay tattoos show many parallels with the variation in design and importance that we can see among tattoos today,” says Pittman.
Pittman says that many traditional tattoos by other ancient people could also be seen in detail using a laser-stimulated fluorescent technique. “So we plan to apply the method to other ancient tattoos from cultures around the world to try to make other interesting discoveries,” he says.
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