Article content

[np_storybar title=”Pazyryk and the Ukok Ice Maiden: Video” link=”#1″]

“Princess Ukok,” who was discovered high in Siberia’s Altai mountains, is about 2,500 years old. She was buried in the permafrost, which kept her body remarkably well preserved, including tattoos that are among “the most complicated and the most beautiful” archeologists have found.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Siberian princess’s remarkably well-preserved body shows how little tattoo fashion has changed in 2,500 years Back to video

“More ancient tattoos have been found, like the Ice Man found in the Alps,” lead researcher Natalia Polosmak told the Siberian Times, “but he only had lines, not the perfect and highly artistic images one can see on the bodies of the Pazyryks” — the nomadic tribe to which the princess likely belonged.

“It is a phenomenal level of tattoo art. Incredible.”

Part of what’s striking about the body art is how modern-looking it is, which is no coincidence, Polosmak says. All the mummies they’ve found that only had one tattoo had them placed on their left shoulders, which Polosmak believes is likely linked to basic body composition — it’s a noticeable place to show off the art.

“Nothing changes with years, the body stays the same,” Polosmak said, “and the person making a tattoo now is getting closer to his ancestors than he or she may realize.”

Princess Ukok’s body was briefly tended to in Moscow by the same team that preserved the corpse of Vladimir Lenin, but for the majority of the nineteen years since her discovery, she’s been housed in a facility in Novosibirsk.

But now she’s heading home to Altai. Her body will be kept in a mausoleum at the Republican National Museum in Gorno-Altaisk. She is to go on display for tourists in a glass sarcophagus.