Lasers help archaeologists study ancient tattoos on Peruvian mummies
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For more than 5,000 years, humans have adorned themselves with tattoos. In a new study, researchers used lasers to uncover highly intricate designs of ancient tattoos on mummies from Peru. 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 researchers examined around 100 mummies from coastal Peru’s Chancay culture – a civilization that flourished before the Inca empire and the arrival of Europeans. All the individuals had some form of tattoos on the back of their hands, knuckles, forearms or other body parts. 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. Using lasers that make skin faintly glow, “we basically turn skin into a light bulb,” said co-author Tom Kaye of the nonprofit Foundation for Scientific Advancement in Sierra Vista, Arizona.
