A pair of mummy’s that were excavated from their graves in the Altai Mountains in 1949 are telling some of their long-held secrets thanks to some new technology.
The couple, believed to be a local chieftain from the Pazyryk culture and his wife (or concubine) remained preserved because they were encased in ice for thousands of years in the valley of the River Bolshoy Ulagan. Alongside the couple were 9 geldings, saddled and harnessed (which had been sacrificed), the world’s oldest known carpets, a wooden chariot with large wheels, and cannabis burning in the burial chamber.
Their mummified remains, which have been housed at the Heritage Museum in St Petersburg since 1949, have undergone scans and now the tomograph images will be studied by radiologists, biological anthropologists, archaeologists and other scientists to establish the cause of death, reconstruct their appearance and study the technique of mummification used.
From the article:
“The Pazyryk people were part of an Iron Age archaeological culture in the 6th to 3rd centuries BC. The Pazyryk archaeological culture belongs to the steppe archeological category, which is sometimes named ‘Scythian’.
They were believed to be skilled surgeons and had knowledge of the Hippocratic Corpus, a set of ancient Greek medical texts .”
The couple are famous for both the elaborate tattoos on their skin and also the two oldest carpets in the world which include remarkable images of the life of the ancient Pazyryk culture in Siberia several hundred years before the birth of Christ.
(PHOTOS: The couple were buried with two of the oldest carpets in the world; there are amazing images of ancient Pazyryk culture, which existed several hundred years before the birth of Christ.)
Tattoos on the man:
- a feline predator (probably a tiger) and a horse on the man’s shoulder.
- the forearm of his right hand has an Asiatic wild ass or horse and a predator with a striped tail
- birds, including a grouse on his hands
- below his knees are tattooed groups of ungulates
(Interestingly, in the past when Pazyryk were found with tattoos only fantastical creatures were depicted.)
Tattoos on the woman:
- a predatory bird, killing a deer or moose on her left arm
- a cock on her left hand
- and on her left forearm, a complicated and unusual scene with two tigers and a snow leopard attacking deer and moose
Source: Daily Mail