Exquisite original tattoos in 1,200-year-old Peruvian mummies are revealed (2025)

Whatever your granny said, tattoos are both forever and don't last. They're forever because once ink has been injected, it's there to stay. But in time, and depending on tattoo care and lifestyle, sharp lines will blur and colors may fade. The picture may become illegible.

Now, application of laser technology to richly tattooed 1,200-year-old mummies in Peru has revealed what the markings looked like before the dyes in their skin lost definition due to weathering and the mummification process, which wasn't helpful to the images' preservation.

The technique of how to see tattoos as they were was published Monday in PNAS Anthropology by Thomas Kaye of Sierra Vista's Foundation for Scientific Advancement and colleagues.

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The earliest tattoos we know of were on Otzi the Iceman, who is estimated to have lived from about 5,370 to 5,100 years ago, to have had Anatolian ancestry and to have 61 body markings. (It turns out that a Chilean mummy from Chinchorro with body art thought to be 6,000 years old isn't actually that old.)

It is plausible that people have been injecting themselves with plant and animal dyes for longer, but Otzi's dermis is the earliest solid proof.

The world's oldest mummy, the Italian Iceman known as Otzi, who roamed the Alps about 5,300 years ago.Credit: Reuters

Showing that style can persist for 5,000 years, Otzi's wrist was adorned with a pair of inked bangles. They could still be discerned after all this time.

How far back tattooing in South America went is not known, but it is thought to have been common in the pre-Hispanic era. And now, application of laser-stimulated fluorescence shows us the original artwork on 1,200-year-old mummies found in the context of the pre-Columbian Chancay culture of coastal Peru.

Why didn't we know what the original tats looked like? Ink migrates. It may be injected in one spot, but it stays liquid in the body and the rest is largely a matter of your genetics, the artist – if the ink was placed at the right depth, typically 0.9 to 1.2 millimeters – the quality of the ink, its color and chemistry, and so on.

C'est la vie: Some people care for their bodily modifications properly, heal beautifully and can admire or regret them for long years. Yet others may follow every rule religiously and discover they're allergic to the ink, their skin rejects it, etcetera.

So, the team found that the skin underneath the tattoo fluoresced intensely. In short, they could produce high-contrast images that virtually eliminated ink bleed.

One finding is that the Chancay body art shows superior craftsmanship compared with decorations on pottery, textiles and rock art. The authors feel the lesson is that pre-Columbian Peruvian artistic complexity was more sophisticated than thought, and/or they devoted special effort to their body art.

The 1,200-year-old mummified forearm under laser-stimulated fluorescence, revealing details of tattoo designs.Credit: Michael Pittman/Thomas G Kaye

Which makes sense. A wall can be repainted. But a tat is there to stay, even if it loses definition.

Today, inks are mostly chemical. Back in the day, tattoo inks were derived from plant or animal or mineral, but in any case natural ingredients. Tats in prehistory would have been administered by the poke method, which is done to this day.

Machine tattoos can achieve finer resolution, but the main difference vis-à-vis the experience is their steady pace, explains a tattoo subject who has done both methods.

"Every time the needle enters the body, it goes in the same distance. The poke isn't controlled, so the artist has to know what they're doing," the subject explains. After that, keep the tattoo out of the sun, which is why it's advisable to get your markings in the fall or winter, when the temptation to expose yourself is mitigated by the cold .

The Chancay mummies were found to exhibit geometric and animal patterns, a small proportion done in lines no more than 0.1 to 0.2 millimeters wide – finer than today's machines can typically achieve. They had been poke-inked possibly using a cactus thorn or bone needle.

We just note that fine lines blur the fastest. For a tat that stays, stick to dark ink, no yellows or oranges, and thick lines. And try to make sure it's an ink type that doesn't prevent you from obtaining future medical intervention. The end.

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Exquisite original tattoos in 1,200-year-old Peruvian mummies are revealed (2025)

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