Siberian Ice Mummies

Speaker 1 Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Tudorberg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great?

Speaker 1 With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists.

Speaker 1 You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to World War II.

Speaker 1 Just visit historyhit.com/slash subscribe.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 Only 10 more presents to wrap.

Speaker 3 You're almost at the finish line.

Speaker 2 But first

Speaker 2 there,

Speaker 2 the last one.

Speaker 1 Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that

Speaker 2 refreshes. refreshes.

Speaker 3 Grief doesn't keep a calendar. Anxiety doesn't clock out after five.
Depression doesn't care if it's your busy season. But support can still fit into your life.

Speaker 3 With Grow, you can find a therapist who meets you where you are. They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the U.S.
offering both virtual and in-person sessions.

Speaker 3 You can search by insurance, provider specialty, treatment methods, and more to find a therapist who works for you. And if it's not the right fit, switching is easy.

Speaker 3 There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session.
Find therapy on your time, evenings, weekends, and cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost.

Speaker 3 Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Sessions average about $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan.

Speaker 3 Visit growtherapy.com/slash ACAST today to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST.
Growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

Speaker 4 Hi folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

Speaker 4 You know, whether you are doing traditional Thanksgiving, a friend's giving, or something in between, Whole Foods Market has great everyday prices on all the things you need for Thanksgiving.

Speaker 4 No way antibiotics ever birds bring quality to your table at a great price. You can enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market.

Speaker 4 And remember, Prime gives you shop online and delivery or pickup as you like.

Speaker 1 Hey guys, welcome to the Ancients and a breaking news story.

Speaker 1 We are releasing this episode only hours after the embargo was lifted on this research that we're covering today, research about ancient ice mummies discovered high up in the Aotai Mountains in Siberia, looking at their tattoos.

Speaker 1 It's an amazing story. I'm so excited we got the scoop on it.
My apologies to the subscribers of the ancients who usually expect these episodes a day early.

Speaker 1 We couldn't do it today because of the embargo. So you're all going to be listening to us together, but it's worth the wait.
Our guest is the senior author of this new research, Dr. Gino Kaspari.

Speaker 1 Let's go!

Speaker 1 2,500 years ago, an Iron Age Scythian people roamed the Great Steppe of Central Asia.

Speaker 2 They're known as the Pazariks.

Speaker 1 Today, they're remembered for their love of gold, horses and animal-style art, but also for their burials.

Speaker 1 Throughout the 20th century, archaeologists discovered a number of Pazaric tombs on a plateau, high up in the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia, buried deep in the permafrost, frozen in time.

Speaker 1 Within were the extraordinarily well-preserved remains of the deceased. alongside a wealth of grave goods, gold, horses, wood carvings, even the oldest surviving rug in the world.

Speaker 1 Today, these individuals are known as the Siberian Ice Mummies.

Speaker 1 And now, groundbreaking new research has revealed more about these people and their ancient culture through the amazing art that adorned their bodies, their tattoos.

Speaker 1 This is a breaking news story, and we have it right here on the ancients with our guest, Dr. Gino Casperi.

Speaker 1 Gino, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.

Speaker 2 Thank you very much for having me.

Speaker 1 Now, Siberian ice mummies. First off, what an extraordinary type of archaeology to study.

Speaker 2 It is truly, I think, extraordinary. And it was to me when I first came across it.
Really, during my bachelor's degree, I had no idea these things existed.

Speaker 2 I was studying Mediterranean and Near Eastern archaeology where you have a bit of a darth of organic material.

Speaker 2 And so I still remember one late evening studying in the library, I came across this little corner down at the very bottom of a bookshelf that had the very limited Siberian section, but there is one book by Rudenko, Frozen Tombs of Siberia.

Speaker 2 And I opened this book and it just kind of, it looks like a fantasy book.

Speaker 2 Like the type of artifacts that they have in in these burials it was just mind-blowing to me sort of the the idea you get from these frozen tombs high up in the mountains how people lived at the time with all the organics preserved that means carpets and it means felt items it means wood carvings and it also means well-preserved human remains including the skin that was just another level of diving back into the past.

Speaker 2 And I think that's really what what drew me towards the steppes in the first place.

Speaker 1 It is absolutely incredible. And it certainly feels, at least here in the West, that getting into Central Asian and Siberian archaeology, it certainly feels like a very niche field.

Speaker 2 It absolutely is. And it is very tricky in terms of jobs.
There's no Central Asian Siberian archaeology departments.

Speaker 2 There are few people here and there that are obviously very interested in the topic, but they all kind of do something else first, and then they look at the archaeology of the steps.

Speaker 2 So it is a niche field, but that also has its beautiful sides to it because

Speaker 2 it's something where really the the basis for what we do in archaeology, the amount of data that's out there is still relatively limited.

Speaker 2 The density of researchers is limited and therefore you got to address some of the really large

Speaker 2 that feel like you're really making a difference. So that's another benefit to working in areas that are not as much touched as maybe archaeology of ancient Rome, right?

Speaker 1 I mean, completely. Very different landscapes, and we'll delve into that.
And you mentioned there, Gino, in passing, the steppes. No such thing as a silly question.

Speaker 1 What do we mean by the steps and steppe archaeology?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so the steps are this ecotone that really reaches from Mongolia all the way to Ukraine and the northern Black Sea region. And this is a relatively arid grassland environment.

Speaker 2 And for a long time, there's not so much happening in prehistory on the steppes.

Speaker 2 Of course, like we're slowly getting a grasp of that, but like the area really becomes viable once you have domesticated animals.

Speaker 2 That really becomes apparent in the first, late second, early first millennium BC with with the widespread adoption of horses on the steppes.

Speaker 2 And that then immediately shows in interaction networks that are really far-reaching, where ideas travel at an incredible speed from east to west, from west to east.

Speaker 1 It is such an extraordinary part of the ancient story of our world, whether it be, you know, the domestication of horses or copper and tin deposits and these bronze roads before the Silk Roads.

Speaker 1 Could talk through all of that, but we're going to explore these ice mummies today because it feels like this huge geographic area is full of these lots of different cultures, with one of them being the Pazeric culture.

Speaker 1 Now, Gino, what was the Pazeric culture?

Speaker 2 So really, the entire first millennium BC is somewhat dominated by these Scythian type cultures. Now, it's important to acknowledge that Scythian is not really used in an ethnic sense of the word.

Speaker 2 Strictly speaking, the Scythians are some tribes in the northern Black Sea region, and the term is derived from Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian.

Speaker 2 But over history of research, this term has come to be associated with a material culture mostly consisting of the so-called Scythian animal style.

Speaker 2 which are these sometimes weirdly twisted animals, sometimes fantastic creatures, griffins that are often engaged in fighting scenes with deer and moose and other herbivores.

Speaker 2 Then we have weapons, we have bows and arrows, we have chicans, which are basically warpics. Wow.

Speaker 2 And then the third thing is horse gear that is really widespread, also like the interment of horses, the association of horses with burials is very, very frequent.

Speaker 2 Now, there are regional variations, of course, and the Pazarig culture is one of these variations that we have that dates to the later part of the first millennium BC and is mostly situated in the territory of the Altai Mountains.

Speaker 1 And whereabouts do you mean by the Altai Mountains? Which modern country should we be thinking of with the Pazeriks?

Speaker 2 So the Altai Mountains are really at the intersection

Speaker 2 between Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China. There's this one spot where these four countries almost join together.
There's a little stretch border that is just the Chinese-Russian border.

Speaker 2 But then there's sort of this southeastern part that stretches down into Mongolia. And then there is a whole arc of mountains, the Sion-Altai mountains, that goes into Tubar, southern Siberia.

Speaker 2 That's where I have been working on sort of older Scythian cultures previously, but this is like the rough distribution area of Posarik culture, Poseric animal style.

Speaker 1 And do we know about the Pazeriks just through archaeology or did they have contacts with either the Persians further west or the ancient dynasties of China further east?

Speaker 2 So there are, of course, connections that we can see through the association with artifacts that have been transported. So for example, some of the carpets seem to be be of Persian origin.

Speaker 2 Some of the mirrors seem to be derived from China. So there are kind of tangible evidence, connections there, but direct written sources about these people do not really exist.

Speaker 2 That is something that comes later with the Xiongnu. That's really something that we have like in the first, second century BC.

Speaker 2 But before that, for all intents and purposes, the step has to be considered prehistoric.

Speaker 1 And the Xiongnu, they're almost seen as predecessors of the Huns or the Huns, aren't they, in Mongolia?

Speaker 1 I know that's another story entirely, but that also helps put the Pazeriks in their place in the fact that we should be talking the early first millennium BC, the Iron Age of that time, do you know?

Speaker 2 The early Iron Age, up until the third, second century BC. Yes.

Speaker 1 And so do we know much, if they're living in the area around the Altai Mountains, you know, at that crossroads of all those many different modern countries today,

Speaker 1 do we get a sense of how the Pazarix lived? It seems quite a a difficult environment. I'm presuming this is quite a high-altitude place.

Speaker 2 It is.

Speaker 2 And of course, things like driving your animals up into the mountains during summertime and also then led to the construction of many a burial up on the high plateaus was an important part of their livelihoods.

Speaker 2 For the longest time, archaeologists have kind of focused on the tombs themselves because that's where you find the nice stuff.

Speaker 2 But through recent years, we've made a lot of progress in actually identifying seasonal settlement sites, campsites, summer camps, and winter camps.

Speaker 2 There's specific environmental factors in place that you can tease out with geographic information systems.

Speaker 2 And so there's like self-exposed slopes and protection from wind and relatively little snow cover so the animals can get through to the grass during winter.

Speaker 2 So there's ways to figure out where people actually lived.

Speaker 2 And so this whole nomadic narrative that has been promoted throughout much of the last century, scholarship, is coming a bit under revision, let's say.

Speaker 2 It's not full-out attack, but we're slowly changing our image for people to be a bit less just randomly wandering around and carrying everything with them.

Speaker 2 But there is an intent and a purpose to their migration routes and very often they're seasonal. So we have a fairly good understanding.

Speaker 2 But when you go there the first time, like the environment is incredibly beautiful. And I'm from Switzerland.
I'm very used to mountain environments.

Speaker 2 To me, like this almost feels like home, but they are harsh environments to live in. Very, very cold winters.
Feels really like a marginal landscape.

Speaker 2 And then when you compare this to the artifacts that we find in the tombs, you immediately recognize that people were incredibly well adapted to this place.

Speaker 2 And they weren't merely scraping by, they were absolutely thriving in these environments.

Speaker 2 And they were creating absolutely beautiful artifacts and things that you would really just not expect in such a place from a naive point of view.

Speaker 1 So I'm guessing, because we'll go on to the tombs now, but it's from the tombs you get more of a sense from the artifacts that have survived there, as we'll explore, more of an understanding of how these groups of Pazarics, how they lived.

Speaker 1 I mean, the different strands of work in their societies, you know, as they were going from place to place, as you say, not randomly, they knew where to go. So kind of that semi-nomadic kind of vibe.

Speaker 1 The archaeology works hand in hand between the living and the dead to understand more about the Pazeric culture as a whole.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So it's important to look at all the remaining evidence, of course, but the tombs do provide a very, very rich story.
And one of the reasons for that is because they are frozen.

Speaker 2 So a lot of these mounds have very deep chambers underneath them. They're often lined with a kind of lock cabin construction underneath.

Speaker 2 That's also what makes scholars think that lock cabins were actually a thing back in the day as housing,

Speaker 2 but lock cabins notoriously do not really leave archaeological traces because you don't have post holes. So given how professionally furnished and

Speaker 2 how well the carpentry work is on these things,

Speaker 2 it's easy to argue that they knew how to build a lock cabin. Also, during the sort of minus 40, minus 50 degrees in winter, it's

Speaker 2 likely more comfortable in a proper lock cabin than it would be in a yurt, even though

Speaker 2 people endure pretty harsh winters in yurts and they're fantastic constructions but it seems like lock cabins were a thing now why were these tombs frozen so on one side it's the deep chamber that often filled up with rainwater soon after it was constructed and then froze over and sometimes

Speaker 2 Interestingly, looters had a hand in that, in that they made a hole for the entrance of rainwater and actually helped with the preservation of things for once.

Speaker 2 So what we have there is usually discontinuous permafrost.

Speaker 2 So it's not the entire area that is frozen, but it is really just sometimes an ice lens underneath the tomb that is only there because of the water that entered the tomb.

Speaker 1 And if you were approaching, just to really give us a sense in our minds, Gino, the whole environment of these tombs, because you already mentioned how they're quite large constructions.

Speaker 1 But if you were approaching the site of one of these tombs today,

Speaker 1 what would you actually see from the surface? Are they recognizable?

Speaker 2 Yes, in most cases, they are, although it does need a bit of training for the eye, but archaeologists see them fairly easily.

Speaker 2 Essentially, on the surface, they can be quite unremarkable, especially the smaller ones are just basically piles of rocks.

Speaker 2 Even the larger tombs at Puzerik, they're substantial piles of rocks, but they're still piles of rocks.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 you can really identify them very easily in high-resolution satellite imagery. You can identify them through LiDAR.
They're slightly elevated.

Speaker 2 So finding these tombs is actually not a very difficult task.

Speaker 1 And also, do you normally find all of these tombs close together? Are there particular sites where you find a large concentration concentration of Pazaric tombs high up in the Altai Mountains?

Speaker 2 Yes, so some of them, actually, many of them are kind of organized in north-south-oriented lines.

Speaker 2 And we've been thinking them as kind of family burials where people return to this place and just bury the next person in line.

Speaker 2 That still needs to be more thoroughly proven by the use of ancient DNA that these people are actually related.

Speaker 2 I think think in other areas we might have more ruler-based elite cemeteries where people are not necessarily related, but this is still something that is ongoing research and needs to be more thoroughly established.

Speaker 1 This episode is sponsored by Ruler.

Speaker 1 Finding a therapist who not only has time for new clients, but also actually takes your insurance can feel impossible. Deciding to reach out and ask for help is huge.

Speaker 1 To then be hit by wall after wall can be so demoralizing.

Speaker 1 Many therapists don't take insurance packages at all, which means that you're stuck paying the full cost out of pocket or paying for an expensive monthly subscription. That's where Ruler comes in.

Speaker 1 They partner with over 100 insurance plans, making the average co-pay just $15 per session.

Speaker 1 Now that's real therapy, from licensed professionals chosen based on your particular situation at a price that actually makes sense.

Speaker 1 You use your insurance benefits to maintain your physical health, so why wouldn't you do the same for your mental health?

Speaker 1 Thousands of people are already using Ruler to get affordable, high-quality therapy that's actually covered by insurance. Visit ruler.com slash ancients to get started.

Speaker 1 After you sign up, you'll be asked how you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know we sent you.
That's rula.com/slash ancients.

Speaker 1 You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

Speaker 5 Hey there, it's Ryan Seacress for Safeway. Flu season is here, and our pharmacies have you covered with a free flu shot with most insurance plans.
Plus, it's cough and cold season.

Speaker 5 And now, through December 2nd, stock up on all the season's essentials and get ready for relief with discounts on items like Musinex Cold and Flu Kickstart, Mucinex Fast Max products, VIX Daquil and Nyquil Combo Pack, Alka Cell Surplus, also airborne and afrid.

Speaker 5 Offers end December 2nd, restrictions apply and offers may vary by location. Visit safeway.com for more details.

Speaker 6 Blood donation is now more inclusive. More people are able to donate blood with the American Red Cross through FDA guidelines that eliminate eligibility questions based on sexual orientation.

Speaker 6 The Red Cross celebrates this historic change and welcomes those who may be newly eligible to donate blood. There's a place for everyone in the mission of the Red Cross.

Speaker 6 The Red Cross is committed to achieving an inclusive blood donation process that treats all potential donors with equality and respect while maintaining the safety of the blood supply.

Speaker 6 Join us and help save lives. To learn more and make your appointment to donate blood, visit redcrossblood.org slash LGBTQ.
That's redcrossblood.org slash LGBTQ.

Speaker 4 Hi, this is Robert Mays from the Athletic.

Speaker 7 This time of year always gets busy, but that's when having Peloton in my life really makes a difference.

Speaker 7 The new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ, helps me fit in great workouts no matter what's on my schedule.

Speaker 7 It's Peloton's most advanced equipment yet, giving you real-time guidance and endless ways to move.

Speaker 7 Peloton IQ plans your workouts, tracks your progress, and corrects your form so you can train smarter and make the most of your time. Let yourself run, lift, flex, push, and go.

Speaker 7 Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus at onepeloton.com.

Speaker 1 And I've also got in my notes the word Kurgan or Kurgan.

Speaker 1 Please forgive my pronunciation if it's wrong. But Gino, is this the word that we call these tombs?

Speaker 2 Yes, so Kurgan is basically the word for burial mound.

Speaker 2 And also, you mentioned how they have these deep chambers underground that, you know, very cold environments and they fill with water soon after they're buried is it that that has allowed so much to survive from within these tombs including the people themselves exactly so it is really the ice lens on the sum of the tombs that has allowed the organics to be incredibly well preserved in some cases where this is not there then we just have the skeletons we have the metal items we have occasionally some well of course some of the animal bones but of course having this frost preservation gives just a completely different look at these ancient societies and before we really explore the remains themselves and the grave goods i mean what does this reveal about how the pazarics buried their dead we do have fortunately some sources that we can occasionally use as at least an association

Speaker 2 and These are foremost the writings of Herodotus, where he elaborates on the Scythian burial practices and to some extent the meaning behind it.

Speaker 2 In how far that directly reflects the kind of cultural values and traditions up in the Altai Mountains or in Tuva remains to be discussed and is sometimes a bit of a stretch.

Speaker 2 But we have some instances where

Speaker 2 It's not a coincidence, I would say, that we have the same things in Herodotus as we find archaeologically on the ground. One such thing is the inclusion of cannabis in some of the burials.

Speaker 2 So, Herodotus describes the Scythians throwing cannabis parts on red-hot stones in a tent, and they then howled for joy.

Speaker 2 So, the guys knew what was going on with that plant. And we actually do have

Speaker 2 what is often euphemistically referred to as incense burners.

Speaker 2 Well, clearly they weren't burning incense, but they were burning something else. So we have these things with the stones in them.

Speaker 2 We do have cannabis seeds in the burials, and we do have little sticks that likely were used to construct some sort of tent to contain the smoke.

Speaker 2 The other thing that is super interesting is we have at one point Herodotus describing a post-burial ritual where young men were sacrificed and horses were sacrificed and they were put up on sticks and put on the back of the horses and thus you had this what I've called a spectral cavalcade, so dead riders surrounding the tomb of usually an elite person, a king or a prince or something like that.

Speaker 2 And just last year, we've published a paper in antiquity as well that actually showed that what we have on the surface of one of the earliest Scythian tombs in the entire Eurasian steppe belt looks fairly familiar to this exact ritual practice which was an absolutely fantastic finding.

Speaker 1 That's an amazing example even though Herodotus as you mentioned earlier is writing about you know people who lived around the Black Sea region so thousands, hundreds if not thousands of kilometers to the west to see similarities with these burials in the Altai Mountains is fascinating and I guess Gino it's one of those amazing cases in archaeology archaeology where you get the archaeology and the literature combining to tell a remarkable tale about people who lived thousands of years ago.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. And it's also been changing our perception of how this culture spread.
Because originally people had kind of naturally assumed the Eurocentric point of view, right?

Speaker 2 That it spread from the northern Black Sea region into the steppes.

Speaker 2 But we know since the latter part of the last century that the earliest burial mounds where we actually have Scythian material culture are situated in Tuva.

Speaker 2 And that's where I've been excavating since 2017 and actually documenting one of the oldest Scythian burial mounds. And

Speaker 2 now we know that the flow of ideas regarding this Scythian material culture is actually east to west and not the other way around.

Speaker 1 And Tuva, so that's the Tuva Republic,

Speaker 1 one of the southernmost regions of Russia today on the Altai Mountains area?

Speaker 2 Exactly, exactly. So it's just underneath the Sion Mountains, close to the border of Mongolia.

Speaker 1 Appreciate it. I did have to do a quick Google search there just to confirm that I can write.

Speaker 2 No problem.

Speaker 1 But it is absolutely fascinating. I must also ask, because I mentioned earlier, we said ice mummies.
But when someone says mummies, you might immediately think of mummification in ancient Egypt.

Speaker 1 So when we go into the burying themselves of these figures, do they prepare the bodies by taking out all of the organs first? Do we know much about that? I mean, how they're laid in these chambers?

Speaker 2 Right. So, of course, in most areas without great organic preservation, we have a bit of a problem really understanding if there is mummification in the first place.

Speaker 2 And that's also something that we'll repeat later on when we talk about the tattoos. The Paseric mummies...
So generally, we have to distinguish between natural and artificial mummies.

Speaker 2 And sometimes there's a certain overlap because in the case of the Paseric mummies, we do have some degree of preparation of the bodies.

Speaker 2 So, some of the larger muscles were occasionally taken out, some of the intestines were taken out,

Speaker 2 there were plants put into the body cavities. possibly to counteract the awful smell in the still relatively warm Siberian summers.
And amazingly, also, through the state of the flowers inside

Speaker 2 these plant remains that we have as kind of stuffing for the bodies, we can pinpoint the exact month when the person was buried.

Speaker 1 So interesting.

Speaker 2 So that's a little interesting chronological detail that you don't have in most other places because some of these flowers have a very short flowering period high up in the mountains.

Speaker 2 And so we know exactly when they were put into the soil.

Speaker 1 With these burials, also in the Pasaru culture, did the goods that they were buried with, did they differ depending on whether it's a woman being buried or a man?

Speaker 2 That is still a bit an ongoing discussion.

Speaker 2 I think the feminist scholarship has one or two words to say on how traditionally some of the biological sex has been assigned to people buried, very often in kind of older Soviet scholarship.

Speaker 2 If it has a knife, it's a man. If it has a mirror, it's a woman.
That's not quite as clear-cut. We definitely do have instances where we have women buried with weapons.

Speaker 2 That kind of plays into the Amazon theme. We also have

Speaker 2 tied back to Herodotus that, you know, usually is dated a bit to a later date and more to a more western region. But we do have similar phenomena in the Altai Mountains.

Speaker 1 And the types of goods that they are buried with, you mentioned earlier, which seems absolutely extraordinary, these carpets.

Speaker 1 So can you kind of explore what are some of the main types of artifacts that you usually find alongside the mummies themselves?

Speaker 2 So of course, first and foremost, and most famously for the Puziric sites, we have a really finely knotted carpet that seems to be of Persian origin,

Speaker 2 where you have these deer bordering the entire thing that have surprisingly accurate anatomical depiction of livers and lung and heart, things that maybe a hunter would aim at.

Speaker 2 And then we also have felt carpets that seem to be more of local production, really, with people up on horses and fantastic moustaches.

Speaker 2 And then we also have some imported textiles. We have some silk.
So it's a really kind of rich accumulation of different materials.

Speaker 2 But one of maybe my most famous artefacts in all of archaeology, these little felt swans. And they look like little plush figurines that we would have

Speaker 2 no idea whatsoever that they would have ever existed if not for these preservation conditions.

Speaker 1 I've just got a couple of images on the screen now, including that. moustache man on his horse with the spotted cape kind of flowing in the wind behind them.

Speaker 1 I mean, I can't believe that these are more than 2,000 years old. And just to think that's just a symbol of the amazing preservation that you have in these tombs.

Speaker 1 And I guess also a symbol of like the richness of these Pazaric burials as well. Do you know what an amazing culture to work on and to know that you have items like that?

Speaker 1 You know, you don't just have the mummies, which we're about to get to.

Speaker 1 You also have these amazing insights into their culture with things like these carpets and I'm guessing other amazingly well-preserved objects too.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, in terms of late prehistoric archaeology, this is one of the most fantastic contexts you could ever work on in terms of the richness of information that you're getting.

Speaker 1 And so, otherwise, do we have food surviving, textiles, gold, horses? Is that what we're thinking?

Speaker 2 Yes. Also, wood carvings is an important one to mention.
So, we have little tables that, if you're moving around a lot, you can take the legs off. So, they're all very transportable.

Speaker 2 They were master wood carvers as well. So, really beautiful griffins that sometimes are eating a deer head or something like that.
So it's, yeah, it's it's quite a sight.

Speaker 1 And Gino, the last thing I've got before we go into the mummies themselves is kind of going back to women and men at these burials.

Speaker 1 Time and time again, if you're looking at Siberia and the Pazarix and the Iron Age time, you get the name Siberian Ice Maiden come up as the most famous example.

Speaker 1 But I'm guessing that particular example, as you've highlighted already, she is just one of many mummies found, many mummies now studied in that area of the world.

Speaker 2 Well, it is kind of the most famous/slash infamous one that's out there. There are not that many mummies, like it is still a relatively rare kind of find.

Speaker 2 And of course, climate change is making the permafrost border move upwards and it is destroying a lot in the process that we don't even know exists, right?

Speaker 2 So there might be tombs that have been frozen 50, 60, 70 years ago and that have in the meantime kind of silently decayed, including all the fantastic items that were preserved in them.

Speaker 2 Still, like the Ukok Plateau, kind of the highest part of the Altai Mountains, is still relatively safe, but it might be affecting the lower areas.

Speaker 1 I just wanted to mention that name there because it feels like that particular discovery the Siberian Ice Maiden is worthy of a podcast in its own right so we won't talk any more about that particular discovery but I'm just glad to have mentioned it so let's go on to these mummies themselves getting towards your research now Gino what can we therefore see on these incredible mummies that have survived so something that came clear already in the 1940s when the first ice mummies were excavated by Rudenko was that some of them indeed had tattoos

Speaker 2 and they were mostly visible on the preserved skin of a chieftain that is still visible in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
Today it's being displayed and you can go and look at it.

Speaker 2 But a lot of the other mummies when they came up they were kind of dark. The skin was oxidized.
And therefore, it was not possible to see any of the tattoos.

Speaker 2 It's only possible with near-infrared light, and that's something, a method that has come up in the past 20 years or so, that we can actually reveal some of the tattoos on the other mummies.

Speaker 1 And of the tattoos that were visible from the beginning, what types of designs did they show?

Speaker 2 So the tattoos of the ice mummies very much mirror the general art style of the wood carvings. And

Speaker 2 so it is a kind of consistent stylistic entourage that people were being in. And so yeah, it's really nice to see that.
So we do have animal fighting scenes again.

Speaker 2 We do have these animals with twisted hind legs. We do have kind of griffin designs, ungulates with raptor heads and the like.

Speaker 1 And is it normally the case on the mummies that have been discovered? Do they all have tattoos on them and do they all have quite a few on them as well?

Speaker 2 Yes. So the interesting thing is that early on, this was kind of treated as, okay, this might be a sign of elite status, but

Speaker 2 really ultimately, all the Peseric mummies that we found so far do have tattoos.

Speaker 2 And that is, you know, sometimes they're not so well preserved. Sometimes there's only like small pieces of human skin that remain,

Speaker 2 but we were able to show that basically any Peseric Pesiric mummy that's survived so far does have tattoos. And so it seems to have been this really widespread practice.

Speaker 1 Well, let's really delve into this research then, Gino. So what was the aim of this research at the beginning? What were you thinking in your head as you went into this project?

Speaker 2 So first of all, the tattoos have been really important in kind of defining the art style of the Pesiric culture. And what we've been working with for

Speaker 2 the last

Speaker 2 decades, basically, are these relatively limited, almost frugal black and white depictions.

Speaker 2 And they do not really offer the kind of richness that you have with the data that we can create nowadays. And so

Speaker 2 going back in, re-documenting some of the mummies with mere infrared photography really for the first time gave us a possibility to look at these tattoos in detail and figure out how they were actually made.

Speaker 1 And did you, for this project, did you then decide with this new technology to focus just on one particular mummy and kind of put all that research, all that technology to bear on one particular?

Speaker 1 I don't want to use the word specimen, but I guess you can use the word specimen here.

Speaker 2 Individual.

Speaker 2 Individual, there we go. Thank you.
That's better.

Speaker 1 That's a better word.

Speaker 2 Yes, so they're not particularly easy to get access to. That's why we first tried out these methods with one individual with actually great success.

Speaker 2 So we figured out how these tattoos were made and we figured out a whole bunch of more little details we didn't know we would discover before.

Speaker 4 Hi folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

Speaker 4 You know, whether you are doing traditional Thanksgiving, a friend's giving, or something in between, Whole Foods Market has great everyday prices on all the things you need for Thanksgiving.

Speaker 4 No way antibiotics ever birds bring quality to your table at a great price. You can enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market.

Speaker 4 And remember, Prime gives you shop online and delivery or pickup as you like.

Speaker 3 Grief doesn't keep a calendar. Anxiety doesn't clock out after five.
Depression doesn't care if it's your busy season. But support can still fit into your life.

Speaker 3 With Grow, you can find a therapist who meets you where you are. They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the U.S.
offering both virtual and in-person sessions.

Speaker 3 You can search by insurance, provider specialty, treatment methods, and more to find a therapist who works for you. And if it's not the right fit, switching is easy.

Speaker 3 There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session.
Find therapy on your time, evenings, weekends, and cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost.

Speaker 3 Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan.

Speaker 3 Visit growtherapy.com/slash ACAST today to get started. That's growtherapy.com/slash ACAST.
Growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

Speaker 1 And so talk me through this particular mummy and your work on this particular mummy with this, you know, really high-resolution digital infrared photography.

Speaker 1 What did it reveal about the nature of the tattoos on that particular mummy and then how it related to larger Pazaric culture?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so first of all, it was not entirely clear whether these tattoos were actually made through

Speaker 2 little puncture wounds or they were made through incisions or even subdermal tattooings.

Speaker 2 For this, we have to understand what kind of like the general framework of pre-electric pre-electric tattooing is. So the most widespread method is through puncture tattooing.

Speaker 2 And so this is mostly hand poking. That's the most prevalent one where you have essentially a needle and some ink and you are piercing the skin with that needle.

Speaker 2 We have a variation of that that's mostly prevalent in the Pacific realm, which is called hand tapping, where you have a tool at an angle where you hit on top of it.

Speaker 2 Then we have incision tattoos where you use usually some sort of obsidian blade or a metal blade and you make very fine cuts into the skin and then you take the ink and rub it into these wounds.

Speaker 2 And then the third version is something that is mostly practiced in the Arctic, which is subdermal tattooing, which honestly doesn't really sound particularly convenient to me, but that's where you actually have a thread.

Speaker 2 You pinch the skin, you put the pigment into the thread, and you put the needle through the pinched skin.

Speaker 2 And through like pulling the thread or the sinew through the skin, the pigment then remains in the skin.

Speaker 2 And so for the Pasarek mummies, it was first and foremost a debate whether it was hand poking or subdermal tattooing. And what we figured out was that it was very clearly hand poking.

Speaker 2 And we also saw that we actually have a variety of different tools that were used. Because for some of the tattoos on the forearms, we have a very consistent line thickness.

Speaker 2 And that is usually something that you generate through a multi-point tool. So a couple of needles very close together.
You do not get that if you're purely hand poking with a single needle.

Speaker 2 Then we have some of the finer details that seem to have been created with a single point tool. Wow.

Speaker 1 Okay. So you learn the nitty-gritty of how they made the tattoos for this particular person.

Speaker 1 But could you also tell whether all the tattoos were added at the same time to this individual or whether they keep coming back to add more and more to their body? What do we know about that?

Speaker 2 So what was really fantastic is to work with an actual tattooer who uses these pre-electric methods day in, day out, and who really understands sort of placement on the body.

Speaker 2 And what we were able to figure out jointly with Danny Ridde

Speaker 2 was that there were actually multi-session tattoos.

Speaker 2 So one of the four ant tattoos where you have some felines fighting with some herbivores, you had first the lower part, and then you had a kind of blank spot that was then filled in.

Speaker 2 So the two are separatable. And so that hints at a multi-session tattoo.

Speaker 2 What we also were able to identify through the high-resolution infrared photography that my colleague Michael Wabulin has mostly worked on is that there are specific instances where they take off the tool, they get new ink, and they start again.

Speaker 2 And that leads to like a slight shift in the line that you could really not see on the previous documentation of these tattoos.

Speaker 2 But it's just a fascinating little detail when you really look at these things very meticulously that you see the whole work process unfolding.

Speaker 1 That's amazing.

Speaker 1 So to repeat what you just said, Thanks to the new technology, you can really now delve into the quality of these particular artistic designs created by someone thousands of years ago for these Pazriks that have endured on the skin of these mummies today.

Speaker 1 What an amazing line of research.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. I mean, this is just, this was a surprise to me, and it really gets you so close to the research subject.

Speaker 2 I mean, harking back to me being in the library, you know, more than 10 years ago and looking at these pictures, now doing this research myself was a special treat for me, for sure.

Speaker 1 And so what did these discoveries,

Speaker 1 what do you think they revealed about the importance of tattooing, you know, and this kind of skin-pricking tattooing method? How important it was to this ancient culture, to the Pazerix?

Speaker 2 It was extremely important, of course, and it was done by professionals. So there is a very clear learning curve.

Speaker 2 Also, like on the same body, we do have tattoos that are of different artistic and sort of methodological quality.

Speaker 2 So we see that, for example, this tattoo with the hunting felines, they are depicted in a very complicated pattern.

Speaker 2 They are front-facing, which is something that is rather unusual in Puzzeric arts and kind of denotes a break with convention.

Speaker 2 So this is a rather advanced tattoo, whereas the other forearm tattoo, where we have a griffin hunting a herdable,

Speaker 2 is really conform. forming more to the general style of Plazaric art.

Speaker 2 So we are able to distinguish basically different artist hands, or at least also different stages in the development of a single artist.

Speaker 2 Of course, that's all speculation whether that was one person or someone else. But what is clear is there were learning curves to

Speaker 2 ancient tattoos in Pasaric society, and they would increase their skills. And it was definitely something that needed a lot of practice to get to a point where you could create these tattoos.

Speaker 1 So we must think then that in these ancient Pasaric societies, there were people who were, I guess, the equivalent today of professional tattooists, you know, who people would go to to get these art styles beautifully depicted on parts of their body.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know if we can go as far as that we have a division of labor that

Speaker 2 allows for purely people just making a living, so to speak, with creating tattoos. But it was certainly specialists that were really well trained and had a lot of practice in creating these tattoos.

Speaker 1 And do we have any more of a sense now about the meaning of these tattoos in Pazeric culture? Why they decided to have them on their body. Was it a marker of their identity or their beliefs?

Speaker 1 Any ideas around that?

Speaker 2 Well, of course, it was a part of their identity. I think this far we can go with the interpretive approach.

Speaker 2 But given it is a prehistoric culture, I think a lot of the meaning will remain hidden, or at least will never really approach the sort of richness and nuance of the meaning that these images originally had.

Speaker 2 Often they are kind of interpreted as apotropaic images, so meaning they're the fending off evil.

Speaker 2 But I mean, that is a very kind of general interpretation that we do have occasionally in other cultures as well.

Speaker 2 In how far that actually is true or not, it's really all speculation and will remain at that stage because we will not find written sources that explain us exactly what these images meant.

Speaker 2 That being said, I think really diving into the details of how these things were created does add a lot of nuance and richness to the image already that we don't necessarily need to go as far and say like, okay, this is what they meant.

Speaker 1 Do you know it is such fascinating research? Is there anything else about this new research that you'd like to highlight before we start wrapping up the episode?

Speaker 2 Well, of course, something I would like to do is now go back in and document the rest of the

Speaker 2 mummies. You've just done one.

Speaker 2 There's also a whole bunch of tattooed mummies in Xinjiang where I've originally done my research, not necessarily belonging to the Pesuric culture,

Speaker 2 but occasionally to a similar timeframe. And so they have not been studied.
And we're currently working on getting access to some of these.

Speaker 2 So that might be the next step that we're all looking forward to if access is permitted.

Speaker 1 Those mummies in Xinjiang, are those the Tarim mummies? The ones, you know, a couple of them have this kind of plaid on that some say is almost like tartan?

Speaker 2 Yes, so there's a whole range of mummies and they date to different time periods. They're from different material cultures.

Speaker 2 So it's just generally through the very dry circumstances in the Torim basin, we have this incredible organic preservation. So there's basically ice and

Speaker 2 desert that allows for organic preservation and that allows for studying tattoos in the end.

Speaker 2 And there's a bunch of them, not just the ones from Xiao He that you're referring to, which are not confirmed to have tattoos yet. Right.

Speaker 2 But it might also be something that maybe comes to light with using near-infrared.

Speaker 1 Regino, do you also hope that this research shines more light on Central Asian Siberian archaeology here in the West, where, as we mentioned right at the start, there is naturally a tendency towards the ancient Mediterranean and Near East.

Speaker 1 But new research like this and the amazing techniques available to people like yourself should garner a lot more fascination with Central Asia and the people like the Pazariks who lived there thousands of years ago?

Speaker 2 Honestly, I think Central Asia is incredibly important, not just as this sort of in-between space between ancient Rome and ancient China that it's sometimes treated as, but the steppe itself is a major hub of innovation and idea transfer and transfer of languages and genes and very, very important to understand

Speaker 2 to also draw parallels to later historical developments. Unfortunately, I think the geopolitics of the place are not particularly rosy at the moment.

Speaker 2 And so I don't foresee an intensification of research in the coming years. It's become very, very difficult to collaborate with researchers, especially from Russia, of course.

Speaker 2 But of course, there are other countries in Central Asia that are quite easily accessible. There's a lot of exciting research coming out of Mongolia at the moment.

Speaker 2 And I have since pivoted to Azerbaijan, which is not exactly Central Asia, but through this route through the Caucasus, it's also kind of tied to steppe archaeology, at least the stuff that I'm pursuing, which might be something for our next podcast.

Speaker 1 I think so, Gino. I think we've done all our questions for today.
I mean, last but certainly not least, your new paper is now out all about your work on these tattoos. Where can people find it?

Speaker 2 The new paper is out in antiquity and you can just type the title into Google. It's called New High Resolution Near Infrared Data Reveal Pazarig Tattooing Methods and it should come up for you.

Speaker 2 Otherwise you can also follow me on Instagram at Gino Kasfari.

Speaker 2 If you want to keep updated with my research, I usually post links to all my published papers there as well and occasionally give little interviews or have colleagues on and we probably have an upcoming interview with my co-author and we'll go more into depth of ancient tattooing methods.

Speaker 1 Yes, Gino, I noticed you've got quite a sizable Instagram following so that's a great way that people can follow your work and of course we will put a link to the article in the description of this episode which also I believe Gino has all the it's got lots of the images from your research as well.

Speaker 1 So people can see the tattoos that we've been talking about today.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. Yes.

Speaker 2 Danny has made some fantastic illustrations, starting off with a very detailed just the facts type of illustration and then step by step going into more an artistically rendered version of them where you can really see what the initial intention behind the tattoo was.

Speaker 1 Regino, extraordinary research. We're so happy to have got the scoop.
And it just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.

Speaker 2 It was an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 Well, there you go. There was Dr.

Speaker 1 Gino Caspari talking you through this extraordinary new research into the Siberian ice mummies through the tattoos that have survived on their bodies and in particular for this research on one particular individual.

Speaker 1 And it's really exciting to see what more research will be done on these figures in the future. I hope you enjoyed the episode.

Speaker 1 It was such a privilege on the ancients to have the scoop on this story that has just been released.

Speaker 1 The paper has just been published, which all of you can go and read and see the pictures and so much more if you fancy. We'll put a link to the paper in the description, in the show notes below.

Speaker 1 Thank you for listening to this special episode of The Ancients. Please follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
That really helps us and you'll be doing us a huge favour.

Speaker 1 If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating too, well, we'd really appreciate that.

Speaker 1 Don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hits podcasts ad-free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com slash subscribe. That's all from me.

Speaker 1 See you in the next episode.

Speaker 4 Hi folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

Speaker 4 You know, whether you are doing traditional Thanksgiving, a friend's giving, or something in between, Whole Foods Market has great everyday prices on all the things you need for Thanksgiving.

Speaker 4 No way antibiotics ever birds bring quality to your table at a great price. You can enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market.

Speaker 4 And remember, Prime gives you shop online and delivery or pickup as you like.

Speaker 6 Blood donation is now more inclusive. More people are able to donate blood with the American Red Cross through FDA guidelines that eliminate eligibility questions based on sexual orientation.

Speaker 6 The Red Cross celebrates this historic change and welcomes those who may be newly eligible to donate blood. There's a place for everyone in the mission of the Red Cross.

Speaker 6 The Red Cross is committed to achieving an inclusive blood donation process that treats all potential donors with equality and respect while maintaining the safety of the blood supply.

Speaker 6 Join us and help save lives. To learn more and make your appointment to donate blood, visit redcrossblood.org/slash LGBTQ.
That's redcrossblood.org slash lgbtq.