Tattoos of rare shape and composition found on 800-year-old Andean mummy

An international team of anthropologists, cultural heritage specialists and lab analysts has found tattoos of a type never seen before on the face and arm of an 800-year-old Andean mummy. Their paper is published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage.

The research team began by noting that there are few surviving examples of tattooed skin from archaeological finds due to the nature of the soft tissue involved. Because of that, they chose to look more closely at a female mummy held at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the University of Turin that had been recovered from a dig site in the Andes Mountains. They began their work by using radiocarbon dating to find the age of the mummy—it showed that she had lived sometime between 1215 and 1382 CE.

They next chose to use a pair of techniques to find any tattoos not visible to the naked eye. They began with 500- to 950-nm infrared false-color analyses and then used 950 nm w/b IR reflectography. They discovered tattoos on both cheeks of the face (three straight running lines from the ear to the mouth) and another on one wrist (in the shape of an S).

To determine the materials used to make the tattoos, the team used X-ray fluorescence and μRaman spectroscopy as well as a scanning electron microscope. They discovered that the tattoos had been made using pigments created from magnetite and a mineral called pyroxenes. Surprisingly, no charcoal had been used.

The researchers were not able to discern the purpose of the tattoos—nothing like them had ever been seen before on a mummy—though they suggest that they must have meant something important to the woman to have them placed so prominently.

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