SIBERIAN PRINCESS REVEALS HER 2,500 YEAR OLD
TATTOOS.
By The Siberian Times reporter
14 August 2012
The ancient mummy of a mysterious young woman,
known as the Ukok Princess, is finally returning home to the Altai Republic
this month.
She is to be kept in a special mausoleum at
the Republican National Museum in capital Gorno-Altaisk, where eventually she
will be displayed in a glass sarcophagus to tourists.
For the past 19 years, since her discovery,
she was kept mainly at a scientific institute in Novosibirsk, apart from a
period in Moscow when her remains were treated by the same scientists who
preserve the body of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin.
To mark the move 'home', The Siberian Times
has obtained intricate drawings of her remarkable tattoos, and those of two
men, possibly warriors, buried near her on the remote Ukok Plateau, now a
UNESCO world cultural and natural heritage site, some 2,500 metres up in the
Altai Mountains in a border region close to frontiers of Russia with Mongolia,
China and Kazakhstan.
They are all believed to be Pazyryk people - a
nomadic people described in the 5th century BC by the Greek historian Herodotus
- and the colourful body artwork is seen as the best preserved and most
elaborate ancient tattoos anywhere in the world.
To many observers, it is startling how similar
they are to modern-day tattoos.
The remains of the immaculately dressed
'princess', aged around 25 and preserved for several millennia in the Siberian
permafrost, a natural freezer, were discovered in 1993 by Novosibirsk scientist
Natalia Polosmak during an archeological expedition.
Buried around her were six horses, saddled and
bridled, her spiritual escorts to the next world, and a symbol of her evident
status, perhaps more likely a revered folk tale narrator, a healer or a holy
woman than an ice princess.
There, too, was a meal of sheep and horse meat
and ornaments made from felt, wood, bronze and gold. And a small container of
cannabis, say some accounts, along with a stone plate on which were the burned
seeds of coriander.
'Compared to all tattoos found by
archeologists around the world, those on the mummies of the Pazyryk people are
the most complicated, and the most beautiful,' said Dr Polosmak. More ancient
tattoos have been found, like the Ice Man found in the Alps - but he only had
lines, not the perfect and highly artistic images one can see on the bodies of
the Pazyryks.
'It is a phenomenal level of tattoo art.
Incredible.'
While the tattoos, preserved in the
permafrost, have been known about since the remains were dug up, until now few
have seen the intricate reconstructions that we reveal here.
'Tattoos were used as a mean of personal
identification - like a passport now, if you like. The Pazyryks also believed
the tattoos would be helpful in another life, making it easy for the people of
the same family and culture to find each other after death,' added Dr Polosmak.
'Pazyryks repeated the same images of animals in other types of art, which is
considered to be like a language of animal images, which represented their
thoughts.
'The same can be said about the tattoos - it
was a language of animal imagery, used to express some thoughts and to define
one's position both in society, and in the world. The more tattoos were on the
body, the longer it meant the person lived, and the higher was his position.
For example the body of one man, which was found earlier in the 20th century,
had his entire body covered with tattoos. Our young woman - the princess - has
only her two arms tattooed. So they signified both age and status.'
The tattoos on the left shoulder of the
'princess' show a fantastical mythological animal: a deer with a griffon's beak
and a Capricorn's antlers. The antlers are decorated with the heads of
griffons. And the same griffon's head is shown on the back of the animal.
The mouth of a spotted panther with a long
tail is seen at the legs of a sheep. She also has a deer's head on her wrist,
with big antlers. There is a drawing on the animal's body on a thumb on her
left hand.
On the man found close to the 'princess', the
tattoos include the same fantastical creature, this time covering the right
side of his body, across his right shoulder and stretching from his chest to
his back. The patterns mirror the tattoos on a much more elaborately covered
male body, dug from the ice in 1929, whose highly decorated torso is also
reconstructed in our drawing here.
His chest, arms, part of the back and the
lower leg are covered with tattoos. There is an argali - a mountain sheep - along
with the same deer with griffon's vulture-like beak, with horns and the back of
its head which has a griffon's heads and an onager drawn on it.
All animals are shown with the lower parts of
their bodies turned inside out. There is also a winged snow leopard, a fish and
fast-running argali.
To some, the clash depicted on the tattoes
between vultures and hoofed animals corresponds to the conflict between two
worlds: a predator from the lower, chthonian world against herbivorous animals
that symbolise the middle world.
Dr Polosmak is intrigued at way so little has
changed.
'We can say that most likely there was - and
is - one place on the body for everyone to start putting the tattoos on, and it
was a left shoulder. I can assume so because all the mummies we found with just
one tattoo had it on their left shoulders.
'And nowadays this is the same place where
people try to put the tattoos on, thousands of years on.
'I think its linked to the body composition...
as the left shoulder is the place where it is noticeable most, where it looks
the most beautiful. Nothing changes with years, the body stays the same, and
the person making a tattoo now is getting closer to his ancestors than he or
she may realise.
'I think we have not moved far from Pazyryks
in how the tattoos are made. It is still about a craving to make yourself as
beautiful as possible.
'For example, about the British. A lot of them
go on holiday to Greece, and when I've been there I heard how Greeks were
smiling and saying that a British man's age can be easily understood by the
number of tattoos on his body.
'I'm talking the working class now. And I
noticed it, too. The older a person, the more tattoos are on his body.'
FINDING THE ICE-CLAD 'PRINCESS'
'It was an international research programme,
devoted to the Pazyryk Iron Age culture,' said Academician Vyacheslav Molodin,
deputy director of Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian
Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences.
To modern man, the only way in is by
helicopter, yet in ancient times this was on the 'southern steppe road' used by
migrating nomadic peoples in the pre-Christian and Dark Ages.
'The burial mound with the 'princess' seemed
to be half deserted, with big holes which border guards dug to use the stones.
'It seemed less than hopeful. But Natalya
Polosmak was determined that we had to start working on it.....
'To our utter surprise, there was an untouched
burial chamber inside the mould.
'We started working on opening the 'ice lense'
- the burial inside the mould was filled with ancient ice.
'We started to melt the ice. First the
skeletons of six horses appeared, some with preserved wooden decorations on the
harness, some with coloured saddles made from felt.
'On one of the saddles was a picture of a
jumping winged lion.
'Then the burial room appeared from under the
ice. It was made from larch logs. Inside stood a massive hollowed wooden log
with a top, shut with bronze nails. Inside the log was all filled with ice.
'It was a tanned arm that appeared from under
the ice first.
'A bit more work and we saw remain of a young
woman, lying inside the log in a sleeping position, with her knees bent.
'She was dressed in a long shirt made from
Chinese silk, and had long felt sleeve boots with a beautiful decoration on
them.
'Chinese silk before was only found in 'Royal'
burials of the Pazyryk people - it was more expensive than gold, and was a sign
of a true wealth. 'There was jewellery and a mirror found by the log.
'The great value of Pazyryk burials is that
they were all made in permafrost, which helped the preservation.
'It was quite unusual to have a single Pazyryk
burial. Usually men from this culture were buried with women.
'In this case, her separate burial might
signify her celibacy, which was typical for cult servants or shamans, and meant
her independence and exceptionality.
'She had no weapons buried with her, or on
her, which means that she certainly was not one of the noble Pazyryk
women-warriors.
'Most likely, she possessed some special
knowledge and was a healer, or folk tale narrator.
'From the inside the mummy was filled with
herbs and roots. Her head was completely shaved, and she wore a horse hair wig.
'On top of the wig there was a symbol of the
tree of life - a stick made from felt, wrapped with black tissue and decorated
with small figures of birds in golden foil.
'On the front of the wig, like a cockade, was
attached a wooden carving of deer.
'The princess's face and neck skin was not
preserved, but the skin of her left arm survived, and we saw a tattoo, going
all along it.
'She had tattoos on both arms, from shoulders
to wrists, with some on the fingers, too. The best preserved of all was a
tattoo on her left shoulder, featuring a deer with griffon's beak and a
Capricorn's horns. A bit below is a sheep, with a snow leopard by its feet.'
It is said tattoos, once done, are for life.
In this case, though, it was a whole lot longer. The experts say they were made
with paint, partially concocted from the burned bits of plants, their soot or
ashes which contained a high level of potassium. The drawings were pierced with
a needle, and rubbed with a mixture of soot and fat.
WHAT RESEARCH ON HER BODY SHOWS
The experts say she died in her 20s, with the
best guess at 25 to 28, and that this was 2,500 or more years ago, making her,
for example, some five centuries older than Jesus Christ, and several hundred
years the senior of Alexander the Great.
'She was called 'Princess' by the media. We
just call her 'Devochka', meaning 'Girl'. She was 25-28 years old when she
died,' said Irina Salnikova, head of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of
Sciences Museum of Archeology and Ethnography.
'The reason for her death is unknown, because
all her internal organs were removed before the mummifying. All we see is that
there is no visible damage to her skull, or anything pointing to the unnatural
character of her death.
'Her body is curled, so we can’t say for sure
how tall she was. Some estimate her to be 1.62 metres, others say she could
have been as tall as 1.68 metres. We could not establish when the young woman
has had her tattoos made, at what age. The horses, found by her burial, were
most likely first killed, and then buried with her.'
In 2010 an MRI scan was conducted on the
mummy, the first time this had been done on ancient remains in Russia. The
final results of exhaustive analytical work has still not been released.
But Andrei Letyagin, chairman of the MRI
Center of the Siberian department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said:
'The cause of death remains unknown. I don't believe that it will be possible
to find an answer to this question because there's no brain and no internal
organs in the body.'
In all probability she did not die from
injury. 'Her skull is fully preserved, and so are the bones,' he confirmed. DNA
obtained from her remains is intriguing.
The Princess of Ukok is not related to any of
the Asian races, the scientists are convinced. She is not related, evidently,
to the present day inhabitants of Altai. Moreover, she had a European
appearance, it has been claimed.
'There was a moment of gross misunderstanding
when a legend came about this mummy being a foremother of people of Altai,'
said Molodin.
'The people of Pazyryk belonged to different ethnic
group, in no way related to Altaians. Genetic studies showed that the Pazyryks
were a part of Samoyedic family, with elements of Iranian-Caucasian
substratum.'
So perhaps more Samoyedic than Scythian.
'We tried to overcome the misunderstanding,
but sadly it didn't work.'
OBJECTIONS
Many locals in Altai were nervous from the
start about the removal of remains from sacred burial mounds, known as kurgans,
regardless of the value to science of doing such work.
In a land where the sway of shamans still
holds, they believe the princess's removal led immediately to bad consequences.
'There are places here that it is considered a
great sin to visit, even for our holy men. The energy and the spirits there are
too dangerous,' warned one local. 'Every kurgan has its own spirit - there is
both good and bad in them - and people here have suffered much misfortune since
the Ice Princess was disturbed.'
It is nothing short of sacrilege to pour hot
water on the remains of ancients who have survived in the permafrost for
thousands of years, he said.
The 'curse of the mummy' even caused a crash
of the helicopter carrying her remains away from Altai, some believe. Then in
Novosibirsk, her body, preserved so well for so long, started to decompose.
Stories circulated that the princess had been
stored in a freezer used to preserve cheese. Fungi began growing on the
preserved flesh, it was claimed.
Whatever the truth, the scientists sought
emergency help from the world-renowned Lenin embalming experts who worked on
her remains for a year.
Back in Altai, many ills have been blamed on
her removal: forest fires, high winds, illness, suicides and an upsurge in
earthquakes in the Altai region.
Local woman, Olga Kurtugashova, said: 'She may
be a mummy but her soul survives, and they say a shaman communicated with her
and she asked to go home. That's what the people want, too.'
'Our ancestors are buried in these mounds,'
insisted Rimma Erkinova, deputy director of the Gorno-Altaisk Republican
National Museum as a war of words raged over the last decade. 'There are sacred
items there. The Altai people never disturb the repose of their ancestors. We
shouldn't have any more excavations until we've worked out a proper moral and
ethical approach.'
THE CAMPAIGN FOR HER RETURN TO ALTAI
'She was a beautiful young woman, whom they
dug up, poured hot water and chemicals upon, and subjected to other
experiments. They did this to a real person,' complained Erkinova to the Irish
Times newspaper in in 2004.
The same year, an Altai regional chief
insisted: 'We must calm people and bury the Altai Princess.
'We're having earth tremors two or three times
a week. People think this will go on as long as the princess's spirit is not
allowed to rest in peace.'
Many wanted the princess to be returned from
the Archaeological and Ethnographic Institute of Novosibirsk, some 600 km away,
and restored to her original burial site.
After some 300 earth tremors in a six month
period, the head of Kosh-Agachsky district Auelkhan Dzhatkambaev,appealed to
the Siberian Federal District presidential envoy Leonid Drachevsky for this to
happen.
Drachevsky travelled to Kosh-Agach and told
residents that the mummies would not be returned, saying they were serving
important scientific purposes, and that he was 'simply uncomfortable hearing
about angry spirits, as if we were living in the Middle Ages'.
Erkinova's plan was different. 'We shall put
the princess in a glass sarcophagus, so everybody can come and bow before her,'
she said.
'This is a very painful issue. Altai's native
people worry about their forbear. The Princess must return to us.'
People were angry, too, that the mummies were
taken on a tour to Korea and Japan with one report saying the princess 'was met
like a diva, with vast crowds, admirers on their knees and bouquets of red
roses'.
Eventually a compromise was reached, though
delays and arguments followed. Finally this culminates in this month's return
of the princess not to her burial place but to the Altai museum.
'We agreed to give back the princess once the
conditions for looking after it were right. That means proper accommodation
with an air conditioner and a special sarcophagus,' said Molodin as long ago as
1997.
'Another condition was that this was our
intellectual property and that we would have the right to use it for
exhibitions and to study it. We're not doing this out of curiosity but in the
interests of science. The soul is somewhere else and we're studying the
remains. So I don't see a violation of any accepted social rule here.'
Finally, all now agree the princess is coming
home.
BANNING MORE ARCHEOLOGICAL DIGS
The Altai authorities have now declared the
remote mountain area from where the princess and her kinsmen were buried as a
'zone of peace' where no more excavations will take place, despite the
near-certain treasures lying in the permafrost.
Such work amounts to plundering, they believe.
To Molodin, who found the male mummy several
years after the princess, this deprives the world of a valuable scientific
inheritance. He argues, too, that the issue is critical since global warming
means the ancient bodies will decay.
Scientists reckon there are thousands of
burial mounds here, hundreds of which date to the Pazyryk period, many of which
may contain answers to questions about where we come from.
