The tattoos of the 'Ukok Princess' are some 2,400 years old. The mummy of a 5th-century BC Pazyryk woman was found in 1993 in an ice-filled Altai kurgan, with deer still visible on her shoulder and wrist.

500 BC

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The event

• The Pazyryk kurgansc. 400 BC · Pazyryk valley, Altai Mountains. The nomads of the Pazyryk culture buried their elite in kurgans in the high Altai, where water seeped into the graves and froze. The permafrost preserved felt rugs, clothing, saddles, horse harness and tattooed bodies. The oldest known pile carpet, now in the Hermitage, comes from here.

5th century BC

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