| Skytic tatoos |
Question:
I'm Swedish and have only seen the name of the skyt's in swedish, it
may be spelled skyyt, sciit or any similar combination. They were a
tribe or folk living in eastern europe and northern asia for 1500-1000 years
ago. Somewhere there is a chief with intact skin *and tatoos* saved, he
was found buried in a swamp.
ANyway, I had a tatoo copied from one of his but I have made a cover-up
on it and cant seem to find a pic of any of that chiefs tatoo's.
I would be grateful for anybody having information on where I can find
pic.s of them or be able to mail *good* scans of one of them (th left
arm fantasy "horse" tatoo), I dream of getting it on my skin again...
Answer:
-The heavily tattooed Scythian chief was found by Russian
archeologist Redenko in 1947 at Pazyrk, Siberia. He was
preserved as an "ice-cube" because water leaked into the
burial mound (kurgan) and foze immediately. The tattoos are
unique bold "tribal" blackline animal motifs, similar to
Shang and Chou Dynasty Chinese art.
Another very similarly tattooed frozen body was found just a
few years ago in the same area, this one a woman with but 5
or 6 tattoos. A couple almost identical. The sites are in
the Altai Mountains in SIberia near the frontier of northwest
China and western Outer Mongolia. The time period of the
burials is estimated about 400-500 BC.
The Scythians, a horse-worshipping nomadic people ranged
from the Altai in the East to the Crimea/Pontus region in
the West. They were well known to the Greeks, and the
Persians and Chinese who called them the 'Sakas".
Amazingly the Scythians were the first to use "transfer
patterns" to aid in applying elaborate tattoo designs. The
evidence of this, along with more information about the
Scythians,
plus the first reliable information on the tattooed
Caucasian mummies [ca. 2000-400 BC.] unearthed in western
China over the last 30 years (and hushed up until recently
by the Chinese) are among the text chapters of a book we are
preparing on the history of ancient and tribal tattooing.
-The name in English version would be Scythian, and there may have been
an article in a National Geographic magazine. Maybe I remember the
horse image. (other possible place for this article might be Smithsonian
magazine)
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