Lasers Reveal Ancient Tattoo Patterns on Peruvian Mummies

For more than 5,000 years, humans have adorned themselves with tattoos. The preserved skin of the mummies and the black tattoo ink used show a stark contrast — revealing fine details in tattoos dating to around 1250 A.D. that aren’t visible to the naked eye, said study co-author Michael Pittman, an archaeologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The study focused on four individuals with “exceptional tattoos” — designs of geometric shapes such as triangles and diamonds, said Pittman.It wasn’t clear exactly how the tattoos were created, but they are “of a quality that stands up against the really good electric tattooing of today,” said Aaron Deter-Wolf, an expert in pre-Columbian tattoos and an archaeologist at the Tennessee Division of Archaeology, who was not involved in the research.Results were published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Many mummies from ancient Egypt also have tattoos, as do remains from cultures around the world.Throughout history, tattoos have been used in many ways -- to mark cultural or individual identity, life events or social status, or to “ward off maladies or help enhance relationships with spirits or deities,” said Lars Krutak, an archaeologist at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who was not involved in the research. While designs on pottery, textiles and stonework are more commonly preserved and studied by researchers, “when ancient tattoos are available to us, they give exciting insights into forms of figurative and abstract art that we aren’t otherwise able to access,” said Bournemouth University archaeologist Martin Smith, who was not part of the study.