archaeologyink

Yesterday at the Museo María Reiche we were honored to share a moment with this somewhat famous man who lived in the lower Nasca Valley between about 750 years ago and the early colonial period. Through social media he has become one of the most famous tattooed mummies in Peru, though also one of the least understood. has been working with the museum and locals to reconstruct the story of his modern reappearance, and to document his handpoked tattoos using modern technology.

During our visit we also met a family from Quispillacta, Ayacucho who told us about the atoq, the Andean foxes tattooed on the left hand. Those trickster animals appear in the lowlands during the growing season, when rain in the highlands flowed down to fill the coastal river valleys, and may have been an ancient symbol of agricultural fertility.

Seven hours by plane, 8 hours by bus, and a taxi ride to the Nasca Valley in Peru to connect with for some ancient tattoo research!

Yesterday we hiked across the Nasca River to survey a large precontact village and cemetery site overlooking the valley. Like most sites in the region this one has been heavily looted, to the point where thousands of pot holes are even visible in satellite imagery. Still, we were able to identify a series of houses built on artificial terraces climbing up the valley walls. Ceramic fragments show the village was occupied for over 1,000 years, with pieces of sea urchin and marine shell marking a connection with the Pacific coast that is over 50 km distant. Inside one house footprint we mapped a granite boulder, carried up from the river and ground flat from use as a mortar, probably sitting in the same place where it was set down over 1,000 years ago. There was also some really interesting evidence of recent activity around looter pits in one cemetery, including (possible) offerings of corn and some other things - but that is a story for later!

19th century Italian tattoos

There’s a new paper in the journal Heritage Science by researchers who worked to preserve tattooed skins in Bologna’s “Luigi Cattaneo” Anatomical Collection. These pieces were recently discovered in storage at the University of Bologna, and brought into the Anatomical Collection around their display at the Italian exhibition “TATTOO - Tales from the Mediterranean.”

Unfortunately the researchers weren’t able to find any information on the exact dates or circumstances sounding the collection. Stylistically they fit within the 19th century tradition, and include both religious and not-so-religious imagery.

Infrared and X-ray Fluorescence spectroscopy showed the tattoos were made using mainly carbon ink.
Other pigments include burnt umber for the woman’s brownish socks, and red ochre for her p***c hair. Other red ink in the collection was made from a toxic mix of lead and mercury.

The article, “Scientific analysis and preservation protocols for tattooed skin specimens from ‘Luigi Cattaneo’ anatomical wax collection” is free to
Read online in the journal Heritage Science.

It’s a cold and wintery weekend here in Tennessee after spending the better part of a week out in Southern California with the crew at . started working on my leg this summer, creating a piece inspired by the patterns we’ve recorded from ancient Peru and how similar some of them are to imagery from Samoa and the Pacific. The result is something kind of old and kind of new, and I couldn’t be happier with it.

Thanks to and Eddie Danielson for their koso work, and to and family for inviting me in!

and everyone else who came by 🙌

PhD photo dump!

Confirmed just this morning - my degree from has been officially awarded. This program allowed me to bundle peer reviewed publications from almost two decades of research on the archaeological evidence for tattooing. My thesis, “Investigating the Methods and Material Culture of Tattooing in Archaeological Societies” is now online and can be downloaded for free via Exeter’s Figshare at https://bit.ly/ADWthesis .

Here are just a few photos from the last couple of decades! Thanks and gratitude to all the researchers and tattooers who have taught, helped, inspired & co-authored along the way:
.tattoo and especially - plus folks not on the socials.

Also special thanks to all y’all who put ink in my skin over the years - .tattoo

🙌❤️✌️

Pachacamac, Peru

Two of our photos of this tattooed individual from the amazing archaeological site of Pachacamac were included in the recent piece on preserved ancient tattoos. Here you see the hand and arm under natural light and photographed using digital infrared, as well as a reconstruction drawing. This particular person has some of my favorite tattoos we’ve documented on the Central Coast.

As (I think) we understand Late Intermediate Period cosmology, the universe was divided into three levels - sky, earth, and water. In the preserved tattoos from the region we find almost exclusively three types of animals: birds, cats, and fish. This individual has all three - birds on the fingers, cats on the fingers and hand, and fish on the hand and running down the arm. Also present are two other major themes: the escalonada, and clusters of diamonds that recall the construction of woven nets.

We don’t know exactly what these tattoos meant when combined together, or the implications for the person who wore them, but they’re a beautiful reflection of worldview and craft practice.

New this morning in !

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/six-ancient-tattoos-archaeologists

Six amazing ancient tattoos and the stories behind them. This short piece features work by researchers including and others. There is some great information here, including a new infrared photo and this drawing by of a tattooed individual from the Nazca desert, who sits today in the Reiche Museum. Great work by everyone featured here!

An all star cast join the hosts of for a discussion about our recent research on preserved tattoos from the Pazyryk site - now live on their premium feed.

If you don’t know Beneath the Skin, you’re missing out! Tune in to the award winning podcast where and Thomas O’Mahony look at “the history of everything told through the history of tattooing.”

Cactus spines and rabbit bones…

Tickets still available for San Marcos, TX on Sunday, Oct 26!

Out for a muddy hike this morning at Purgatory Creek Natural Area and ran across some beautiful stands of native prickly pear cactus. Long before the arrival of Europeans, the Karankawa and other indigenous groups in what is now southeastern Texas used the spines of these plants - along with materials like sharpened rabbit bones and mesquite charcoal - in their tattooing traditions.

We’ll be talking about these and other traditional tattooing tools from around the world this Sunday at the in downtown San Marcos. Come hang out with and me to hear about ancient tools, tattooed mummies, and how archaeologists are (finally) working on understanding these ancient practices!

Tickets are still available for $10 by Venmo to (link on their profile). All proceeds cover facility and equipment. Join us at 5:30 for drinks and snacks, program@to start at 6.

🙌

How scientists are cracking the secrets of the world’s oldest tattoos Turns out, ancient body art is a lot more common than we once thought—and it's providing historians with new ways of understanding our ancestors.

October 26 in San Marcos, Texas

Over the last two decades my colleagues and I have chased the archaeological evidence for tattooing down so many different rabbit holes! For me the story begins working alongside other archaeologists and professional tattooers to make replicas and test the suitability of possible tattooing artifacts on pig skin - and sometimes ourselves. Fast forward to twenty years later, and we’re using digital technologies to document the largest sample of tattooed mummified remains ever recorded.

Coming up on Sunday October 26, I’ll be in San Marcos, Texas with , sharing what we’ve learned about tattooing in the archaeological past. We’ll be at , 131 Guadalupe St in San Marcos from 5-8 pm.

Tickets are $10, to cover space & equipment costs. To register, Venmo (link in their bio) with name(s) and email address.

This event is live & in person only - see you in Texas!

Photos by Brian Finke🙌