One of the most remarkable mummies in the world is the Ukok Princess, a woman who lived in Siberia at least five centuries BCE.
Breast cancer, stage 4 – this was the diagnosis of a young girl with a deer tattoo who died 2,500 years ago. The sad judgment was given by a group of paleopathologists who analyzed the mummy of Princess of Ukok (also known as The Siberian Ice Maiden or Altai Princess, found in 1993 in Altai).
Despite the fact that research has been ongoing for almost two decades, little is known about this girl. So I compiled all of the data that scientists have discovered over the years.
The mummy of the “Altai Princess” now lays in a little gloomy mausoleum in Gorno-National Altaysk’s Museum of A.V. Anokhin. It is housed in a high-tech coffin that maintains a steady temperature and humidity. Visitors have only a few days per year to see the mummy.
There are various reasons for this, including the fact that local Altaians continue to demand the burying of “Altai Princess Ak-Kadyn,” believing that disrupting her eternal calm will consign them to misfortunes like as earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters. They think the “White Lady” was the keeper of peace and the path to the afterlife. Because she is not in her resting place, the Evil wreaks havoc outside.
The remains of the immaculately dressed ‘princess,’ aged around 25 and preserved for millennia in Siberian permafrost, a natural freezer, were discovered during an archeological expedition in 1993 by Novosibirsk scientist Natalia Polosmak.
Six saddled and bridled horses were buried around her, her spiritual escorts to the next world and a symbol of her obvious status, perhaps more likely a revered folk tale narrator, a healer, or a holy woman than an ice princess.
There was also a meal of sheep and horse meat, as well as ornaments made of felt, wood, bronze, and gold. According to some accounts, there was also a small container of cannabis and a stone plate with burned coriander seeds on it.
‘When compared to all tattoos discovered by archeologists around the world, those on the Pazyryk people’s mummies are the most complicated and beautiful,’ said Dr Polosmak. More ancient tattoos have been discovered, such as the Ice Man discovered in the Alps, but he only had lines, not the perfect and highly artistic images seen on the Pazyryks’ bodies.
It was an incredible scientific and priceless discovery! Everything that time easily destroys has been properly preserved by permafrost: garments, materials, and skin. Groundwater, most likely melted snow, permeated the burial and froze for decades. I could compare this girl to a fairy princess buried in an ice coffin, but the Altai Princess’s body was embalmed, the internal cavities were cleaned, the brain and muscles were replaced with chopped herbs, and the body was covered with a mercury mixture before being buried.
