Humans have been visible on the skin for more than five centuries. A research team looked at the art of tattooing among an ancient culture, the Chancay culture, which lived on the Peruvian coast between approximately 900 and 1500 AD.
A hundred mummies dating back 1,200 years, associated with this pre-Hispanic population, were found in 1981 at the Cerro Colorado cemetery in the Huaura Valley, with tattoos on their bodies. “Tattoos were a widespread art form in pre-Hispanic South America, exemplified by mummified human remains with preserved skin decoration that reflects the personal and cultural representations of their time,” the scientists indicate in their published study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
But it is difficult to study these body drawings as they are. “Tattoos are known to fade and bleed over time, which is made worse in mummies by the decomposition of the body, making it impossible to examine the original work of art,” they detail. This is why the researchers used a new method to highlight the illustrations. The technique is called Laser Stimulated Fluorescence (LSF) and until now it has never been used for tattoos.
The mummies were therefore placed in a dark room, under lasers which did not damage them. The latter made their skin shine in order to create a contrast with the ink (…)
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