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If tattoos are prone to fading in a single human life, imagine the wear of mummy tattoos of 1200 years.
An international team of researchers has, for the first time, used lasers to reveal tattoos on mummies from Peru. Using this technique, detailed in a January 13 to study published in the newspaper PNASresearchers discovered beautifully intricate designs, and (literally) shed light on the intricate tattooing practices of the ancient Chancay culture. Their discoveries reveal a higher level of artistic skill in pre-Columbian Peru than previously thought.
Tattoos have existed as a form of artistic expression for over 5,000 years, with the the oldest example belonging to the famous Otzi the Icemandied in the Alps between Austria and Italy about 3300 BC. However, because ancient soft tissue remains are rare and tattoos fade and bleed over time—a condition that is obviously worsened as a body decays after death—archaeologists have little opportunity to study the ancient art form. In the opportunities that present themselves, researchers have historically used infrared images to analyze the design, which also fails to discover the finer details of tattoos, according to the study.
The recent team used a technique called laser-stimulated fluorescence (LSF), which uses lasers to reveal details in soft tissues, to study tattoos on Peruvian mummies. Paleontologists have used LSF for years to study dinosaur remains, he said Science AlertBut this marks the first time the technique has been used to analyze ancient tattoos on mummified human remains – and the results were fantastic.
“We’re basically turning the skin into a light bulb,” said Thomas G. Kaye of the nonprofit Foundation for the Advancement of Science in Arizona, which participated in the study, as reported by the Associated Press. In other words, the researchers used lasers to make the non-tattooed skin glow in sharp contrast with the tattooed skin, even revealing delicate ink designs invisible to the naked eye.
The researchers, including a scientist from the José Faustino Sánchez Carrión National University in Peru, studied more than 100 mummified human remains of about 1,200 years belonging to the Chancay culture. The Chancay were pre-Columbian people who lived along the central coast of modern Peru between about 900 and 1533 CE, according to the study. Now recognized for their textiles, they were eventually absorbed into the Inca Empire.
Although most of the tattoos on the Chancay mummies were “amorphous patches with ill-defined edges”, some of the designs had lines between 0.0039 and 0.0079 inches (0.1 to 0.2 millimeters) thick , the researchers wrote in the study. These details “reflect the fact that each ink dot was deliberately placed by hand with great skill, creating a variety of exquisite geometric and zoomorphic patterns,” they added. “We can assume that this technique involved a finer pointed object than a standard #12 modern tattoo needle, probably a single cactus needle or a sharp animal bone based on known materials available to the artists.”
The researchers compared the tattoo designs with other Chancay material culture, including ceramics, textiles and rock art, and determined that the tattoos are the “most intricate art” of the culture found to date.
“The study therefore reveals higher levels of artistic complexity in pre-Columbian Peru than previously appreciated, which expands the degree of artistic development found in South America at this time,” explain the researchers.
Perhaps this first successful use of LSF to study tattoos on mummies will lead to the discovery of older designs that will also give modern tattooists a run for their money.
