dani-dibobidi-bu

IT GETS BETTER.

This mummy, found in the  Altai mountains of Siberia, is actually that of a young woman who died at about the age of twenty-five; she is thought to have been a member of the Pazyryk tribe.

She was buried with six horses and two similarly-tattooed men (the horned griffon that decorates her shoulder also appears on the man buried closest to her, covering most of his right side), possibly escorts. She was also wearing a horse-hair wig, silk, and elaborate boots, which is all a level of ceremony that would have likely only been accorded to a woman of high rank. You didn’t get inked like this unless you were very important, and had worked your way up to that importance. 

…Hence, of course, the references to her by researchers as ‘The Ukok Princess,’ although due to the lack of weapons in her grave they have concluded that the woman was in fact a healer or a storyteller.  

And now I’m all consumed with curiosity: Who was she? What amazing things did she accomplish? Why these symbols, and what did they mean? Who were the two men alongside her?

COLLIER, John (1850–1934)