Tattoos of Ancient Peru
Peru has been occupied by many civilizations for thousands of years, and as archaeologists continue to excavate sites across the country they continue to find more mummies with tattoos. Tattooing was not a taboo practice among many pre-Colombian peoples within west regions of South America, many mummified remains of social elites have been adorned with tattoos. This is not to say that all tattoos were purely a cosmetic or ritual art form.
Anthropologists and archaeologists uncovered a 1000 year old female mummy in the Chiribaya Alta desert in Southern Peru. The woman's preserved skin still contains black decorative patterns and geometric shapes, some of her tattoos symbolizing animals such as birds and reptiles. Unlike the animistic designs on her arms and hands, the tattoos on her neck are simple circles that overlap with asymmetrical placement. The great difference between tattoo designs on her body indicate that the circles on her neck could have likely been for therapeutic use. Thus leading the archaeologists who found her to conduct further laboratory analysis of her tattooed skin. References:
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