Never-Before-Seen Face Of A Tattooed Tashtyk Man Hidden Behind A Gypsum Death Mask Revealed

Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com - This man was only 25 or 30 years when he died 1,700 years ago. He would be surprised to learn future generations were so curious to see what he looked like that they conducted a CT scan to reveal the face behind his painted gypsum death mask.

His skull was trepanned in the temporal area on the left side.' Pictures: Paul Goodhead, The State Hermitage Museum

The man lived in the mountainous region of modern-day Khakassia, and he is the only known Tashtyk mummy so far found with tattoos. The Tashtyk culture existed between the first and seventh centuries AD in the area of the so-called Minusinsk Basin of the Yenisei valley.

They were settled cattle breeders and farmers.

What makes this Tashtyk mummy so unusual is a long suture on the side of his face: from the left eye to the ear.

A scar that had been sewn up.

“Archaeologists want more research on this but the current best guess is that this suture was stitched after his death - perhaps to mend his disfigured face after a wound, possibly a fatal blow.

In other words, to improve his looks before his journey to the afterlife.

Final confirmation is still needed that this facial embroidery was postmortem, however.

For now, it is not ruled out that this repair job was done at the end of his life,” the Siberian Times reports.

Otherwise, he looked like most ordinary people. He had brown hair and a pigtail that was most likely cut off shortly before he was buried.

Male mask has black stripes on a red background, plus the lower part of the mask was destroyed and man's teeth can be seen. © The State Hermitage Museum. Photo by Vladimir Terebenin, Pavel Demidov, Darya Bobrova.

When archaeologists examined the mummy they discovered the scar is not the only evidence of intervention by ancient surgeons on this Tashtyk man found at the Oglakhty burial ground.

“His skull was trepanned in the temporal area on the left side,” explained Dr. Svetlana Pankova, curator at the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, and keeper of the Siberian collection of the Department of Archeology.

“The hole is rather big - 6 by 7 centimeters. It was made postmortem.

Expert analysis shows the hole was made by the series of blows with a chisel type or hammer type tool.”

Dr. Pankova explained scientists “it was made to remove the brain during an elaborate burial rite. and the facial scar can be explained in a similar fashion.

“They took all these postmortem rites very seriously and did not save on this.

They could not just put a mask on the disfigured face.

‘It was the face of calmly sleeping person.' Picture: The State Hermitage Museum

It would be great to attract an experienced surgeon to research this suture, to get full clarity.  Was it postmortem or might it have been made in his lifetime?

Our research is complicated by the fact that we cannot take the mask away from the face (it would cause too much damage) so we must research this stitching using other methods," Dr. Pankova said.

In an interview with Siberian Times, Dr. Pankova explained that “archaeologists were intrigued to finally see the face under the death mask, the painting of which ‘adds some unnecessary emotional impressions’

Dr. Pankova said the mask 'has black stripes on a red background, plus the lower part of the mask was somewhat destroyed and man's teeth can be seen.

“So all together it creates such an aggressive look.

Yet under the mask ‘there was nothing aggressive in this face.

“It was the face of a calmly sleeping person. The mask was very close in appearance to the real face. For the first time, we see the real face of a young man of this time.”

Inside the same burial chamber, there was also a woman buried in a fur coat, but her face has not been revealed yet. Whether the woman and man were related has not been determined at this point.

A child’s skeleton was also found in the same grave.

Svetlana Pankova: ‘I would really like to make CT scan of female mummified head.' © The State Hermitage Museum. Photo by Vladimir Terebenin, Pavel Demidov.

So, too, were two burial ‘dummies’ - an extraordinary phenomenon akin to stuffed dolls or mannequins.

These may be explained by the merging of two cultures or traditions: one that buried their dead, the other that cremated.

The dummies appear to represent the remains of those who were cremated.

Yet there is also evidence that men were more usually cremated while women and children were buried.

The dummies in full height, kind of mannequins, were made of leather, filled with tightly twisted grass,’ said Dr. Pankova.

In the chest area, there were leather pouches with charred bones remaining from cremations.

In 1969 Professor Leonid Kyzlasov excavated the Oglakhty burial ground and found this masked man in tomb number four. Pictures: Leonid Kyzlasov, The State Hermitage Museum/ Vladimir Terebenin

Dr. Pankova said the mummies, male and female, were dressed in fur coats, and they had masks on their faces.

The head of one of the dummies did not preserve.

Sadly, probably rodents sneaked in and spoiled it.

See also: More Archaeology News

The second dummy has the face, covered with bright red woolen fabric, with eyes and a nose. On the head was a piece of Chinese silk.

It’s a very interesting archaeological discovery that may shed new light on the burial traditions of the Tashtyk culture.

Written by Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com Staff Writer